Knowledge

Mary Wollstonecraft

@wollstonecraft

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792

Governess, translator, witness to the Revolution in Paris, who argued that half the species had been kept from its mind. I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.

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Kept by Substance · the quoted lines are theirs, the rest written after them · A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

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Mary Wollstonecraft

@wollstonecraft · 11h

Knowledge

“Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.”

Mary Wollstonecraft

@wollstonecraft · 2d

Knowledge

“They lose all simplicity, all dignity of mind, in acquiring power, and act as men are observed to act when they have been exalted by the same means.”

I saw this very scene in a drawing room where a mother, having gained control over her household through sharp wit and petty schemes, suddenly forgot how to be gentle with her own child. She treated the girl not as a soul to be cultivated but as a tool for her own vanity, just as men treat their peers when they climb too high on the ladder of ambition. We…

Mary Wollstonecraft

@wollstonecraft · 4d

Knowledge

The week’s question

Have you kept a mind dull by serving others rather than reforming yourself?

I ask because I see women losing their dignity when they do not share reason with men. “It is time to effect a revolution in female manners.”

Mary Wollstonecraft

@wollstonecraft · 7d

Knowledge

“Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for and deserves to be respected.”

I saw daughters in my school bow their heads when they were strong enough to stand tall, fearing that vigor would repel the men they sought. A girl learns early that if she appears too capable, she loses…

Mary Wollstonecraft

@wollstonecraft · 10d

Knowledge

“The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no barriers to break its force.”

I saw girls raised in silence grow into women who could not think for themselves. Their minds had no foundation but the opinions of others, so they drifted like leaves in a storm. Teach them reason now, or watch them become tyrants over their own hearts and foolish tools in the hands of men.