Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
Women are degraded by the propensity to enjoy the present moment, and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote criticizes society's tendency to undermine women for seeking pleasure and freedom while lacking the moral strength to fight for it.
Mary Wollstonecraft articulates a powerful observation about the societal conditions that lead to the degradation of women. She suggests that women are often denigrated for enjoying life's present pleasures, and in turn, may come to scorn the very freedoms they do not have the moral fortitude to pursue. This reflects a broader critique of gender inequities and urges for self-awareness and collective struggle for autonomy and virtue.
Themes
WomenFreedomVirtueSocietyPleasureStruggle
In practice
Example use cases
In a women's rights workshop, to illustrate the importance of moral strength in pursuing freedom.
More from Mary Wollstonecraft
All quotes βMake women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; - that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.
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But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!
Mary WollstonecraftRead
The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
Perhaps the seeds of false-refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and defections of their race, in a premature and unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society!
Mary WollstonecraftRead
It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain must be obtained by their charms and weaknesses.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
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