"The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed"

I must say that this article is well written, but boy, were there a lot of words that I didn't know!  This article made me realize that my vocabulary needs some work, but good thing I have a forty-word vocabulary assignment that I have to do!


After I powered through the vast unknown vocabulary of this obviously revolutionary article and figured out what a majority of these words mean, I noticed that Mary Wollstonecraft was writing about women's rights and the oppression that they, or shall I say we, faced back in the eighteenth century.  In her opinion, she seemed to believe that women were seen as inferior because of their gentleness and their "stupidity".  Wollstonecraft also commented on how men believed that women should be faithful servants and tend to their every want and need. She stated that men almost thought it was a woman's "duty" to serve a man, be in need of protection, and possess gentle and innocent characteristics -- characteristics that showed "weakness".  Men were obviously thought to be the stronger sex and because of that, "brutal force has...governed the world".


There were a few things about this article that confused me, but the most prevalent one was Wollstonecraft's views on the relationships between men and their wives.  All I got out of that section was that men believed that "[women] were made to be loved, and must not aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as masculine".  I have to admit that she lost me a few times in her long explanations.


Wollstonecraft's article definitely took me a while to understand, there were so many long, almost run-on sentences and the vocabulary was off the charts, but I do have to agree that women back in the colonial period were stepped on and sadly stepped over.  Women back then were nothing in society, and women throughout the next few generations fought so hard to obtain their rights.  It makes me proud to know now that men and women are mostly equal today.