The University of Jordan

The English Department

Feminist Theory
Ph.D. Course
Prof. Rula Quawas
Tasneem M. Jweifel
Different Arguments,
Complementary roles.
During the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment and Reason, a
revolutionary spirit haunted different thinkers to come up with radical changes with
regard to science, politics, society, philosophy, religion and other aspects of life. Science
and reason were the main core of that age through which arguments were to follow logic
and sense.
Discoveries and explorations at that time brought order to the physical world
where everything meant to follow a certain system. According to Newton and Cassirer,
cosmos and humans are governed by mathematical, natural laws. Based on this, the
American Declaration of Independence stated that all men are created equal; therefore
they are granted certain inalienable rights. Declaring rights to people is a step further in
the progress of human existence. Legitimizing the rights of citizens assure good life for
them under the authority of constitutional governments. However, this wasnt an
objective declaration.
Though it was an age of order and human rights, still those of power and in
authority, acted as tyrants, according to Wollstonecraft in her Vindication, towards
certain groups of people. I think, as long as we divide the human race into groups or
classes, then this is in itself humiliating. Its been always received as a truth since the
time of the discovery of Columbus that the different is the other; therefore is inferior or

inhuman. What is it of science, of the Newtonian discoveries, of Galileos explorations, if

we dont understand that everything in this universe complements the other! Everything
works with everything in harmony, the fact that keeps on the continuity of life and human
race.
One of the main problematic issues which arose at that time was the position of
women in accordance to the social structure. Characterized by reason and rationality,
eighteenth-century society was male-chauvinist based on the assumption that males are
the rational creatures above all, and the rest was thought of as less than real, insignificant,
and not nameable; and those were mainly women. As a result, women were excluded
from this order and accused of lacking rationality and reason.
In an attempt to raise the voice of women and call for their rights as full real and
independent individuals, many thinkers fought for self-sovereignty and full citizenship.
Among the important feminist figures are Wollstonecraft, Stanton, Wright, Grimke,
Fuller, and Gilman. As I went through reading them, I thought that each one of them
aimed at the same point but through different arguments stemming from different aspects;
reason and logic, religion, politics. Not only do they use different sources of arguments,
but they also focus on different sides of the woman so once each side is well constructed,
then the sum would be a whole full individual before she is seen as female. In other
words, they, coincidently, complement each other in a way that mental, spiritual, and
physical growth is achieved if the different arguments are well considered.
Mary Wollstonecraft was a rationalist who believed in the power of the intellect
and reason. She called for the education of women and providing them with proper
training in critical thinking. She followed the spirit of the age in proving her argument;

she used sense and logic as a means to debunk current beliefs about women. The
geocentric basis of Ptolemaic astronomy was refuted only to discover that Earth has
never been the center of the universe. If scientific facts can be disproved, then cultural
constructions and social beliefs can be changed if a sense of reason underlined the
argument. The title of her book suggests her attempt. In other words, if we consider the
meaning of the word Vindication, it means:
vindication (n.)
late 15c., "act of avenging, revenge," from Old French vindicacion "vengeance,
revenge" and directly from Latin vindicationem (nominative vindicatio) "act of
claiming or avenging," noun of action from past participle stem of vindicare
"lay claim to, assert; claim for freedom, set free; protect, defend; avenge"
(related to vindicta "revenge"), probably from vim dicare "to show authority,"
from vim, accusative of vis "force" + root of dicere "to say" (see diction).
Meaning "justification by proof, defense against censure" is attested from
1640s.
(etymonline, web)
The different indicative meanings of the word vindication justify her choice of diction
and imply what she attempts to do in her book. In an action of revenging for women, she
speaks on their behalf that they are full human beings whom should be granted
inalienable rights the same as men. She writes back to the French Declaration of
Independence in the sense that if women were excluded from the new French
constitution, France would remain a tyranny (17). Susan Anthony agrees with
Wollstonecrafts argument, and she depends on religion in encouraging women to revolt
against this tyranny saying, Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God (36).
Wollstonecraft tried to defend women arguing that they are never less than males
in any sense, they only need power; the only source of which is education. In other
words, she wants to free women from male control, or what Stanton called absolute
despotism, where the despot is man. The word vindication also means justification

by proof, a means she follows to build her argument. Actually, she stimulates the age by
the collectively believed to be powerful; reason. She speaks to the minds of people to
think rationally that since there is no sex in souls, then men and women should have
the same mental and spiritual training as long as they have the same moral and
intellectual core.
I believe that having such a female thinker, like Wollstonecraft; well educated,
mentally developed, spiritually grown, and has such a logical well structured thinking,
proves that women have the capacity to challenge men and have similar positions. They
only need proper education away from the traditional one upon which societies assigned
people certain social roles; like a female is only a mother and a wife. The problem is that
women were raised to be dependent females not full independent individuals:
We are the only animal species in which the female depends upon the male
for food, the only animal species in which the sex-relation is also an economic
relation. With us an entire sex live in a relation of economic dependence upon the
other sex (60).
Charlotte Gilman, in her Women and Economics, realized the issue of women
being economically dependent on men, therefore, their only focus shifted to developing
one capacity; that is attracting males because this is the primary means of survival.
Gilman depended on Darwinist theories in explaining race development. In so doing,
Gilman tried to use science and reason to prove her argument in a more scientific way.
According to Darwin, survival is for the fittest, as believed by people at that time, males
were the fittest and women relied on them to survive. On this basis, Gilman argues that
all women are reduced to the level of prostitution to survive. Therefore, she urged a

variety of changes through which women improve themselves as full independent

individuals.
If we stop shaping our daughters according to the traditional social forms or
constructions and give them the chance to grow first as humans and then as persons with
independent personalities, they will have the power to live as individuals and interfere in
the public sphere.
Frances Wright stresses on the importance of education and critical thinking to
liberate women from subjugation. However, she prefers the kind of knowledge that
comes through the senses. According to her, truth comes from within the individual and
never to accept it as infinite established by institutions. In other words, knowledge is to
received through direct contact with reality. Both Wollstonecraft and Wright agree on the
idea that women should live the experience by themselves and never be spoken on behalf
or accept an intermediary (a male).
Wollstonecraft differs from Wright in the sense that she believes that reason can
be achieved through direct contact with god. Such contact helps achieving moral growth
and therefore the ability to make moral judgments.
Sarah Grimke resorts to the same argument of Wollstonecraft, in that she rejects
male clerical intermediaries in an attempt to receive truth through the self. She also relied
on the fact that the intellect is not sexed, just like souls as Wollstonecraft suggests. In
other words, and as believed by thinkers of the Enlightenment, men and women are
naturally equal and ontologically the same, therefore, souls and minds are the same if
provided with the same education and training.

Elizabeth Stanton, on the other hand, in her Solitude of Self, stresses on the
importance of building womens characters. Intellectual and moral growth is important,
but Stanton states that daughters should be educated in courage and self-independence,
believing in the Protestant fact of the individuality of the human soul. I guess that Stanton
succeeded in convincing men, specifically, with her argument. When she wrote
Declaration of Sentiments 1848, one hundred men and women signed it and accepted
its content. If some men appreciated the work and went with granting women their
inalienable rights, then the door is open to others who may reconsider the issue of women
and believe in them as full real individuals.
Moving to the nineteenth century, thinkers during that age resorted more to
achieving serious cultural transformations. There was a shift in focus from the rational to
the irrational, from the logical to the intuitive sides of life. The Romantics at that time
stressed on the idea of individualism and how difference brings power. This shift
affected the way feminist thinkers in the way they would improve their arguments.
Focusing on other aspects in proving the identity of women in societies help build fuller
and more complete and real individuals.
Margret Fuller, one of the main feminists in the nineteenth century, focused in her
Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) on the emotional intuitive side of knowledge
away from the mechanistic view of the Enlightenment rationalists. What might be
advantageous in Fullers argument is that she doesnt call for having women as rulers but
deal with them as ...a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely
and unimpeded, to unfold her powers... (49). Fuller, like Stanton, focuses on the kind of
knowledge that comes from within not from without which develops self-reliance, a goal

that Grimke aimed at as well. She also provides another concern that wasnt considered
during the Enlightenment age; loving relationships and connectedness to community,
which follows participating in public sphere and being part of social, political, and
cultural formations.
Then she relies on the fundamental basis of the age spirit, difference is power.
Fuller believes that the kind of differences women have as certain feminine qualities that
males lack make them distinctive in nature and powerful. However, these differences
would be useless if not discovered and well improved; were they free, were they wise
fully to develop the strength and beauty of Woman, they would never wish to be men, or
manlike (50).
So many other feminist appeared along history in an attempt to fill gaps missed by
the previous ones. But as for those I have discussed above, I think that they used different
sources or bases upon which they built their argument in a way that they were fit to the
age. They also tackled different aspects of the woman; her physicality, mentality,
spirituality and personality; a coincidence that brought to woman almost full complete
view of how to develop her in different aspects of life.

Sources:
-

Josephine Donovan: Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?
allowed_in_frame=0&search=vindication&searchmode=none