A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women In 19th Century England

Through the past centuries women have been writing about the roles and rights of women in England. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women in the late 17th century which explicitly fought for women’s rights. Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice in the 18th century that included themes about love, pride, prejudice, and reputation. Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One’s Own in the 19th century to share the roles and rights of women in the late 1500s. All of these writers chose to speak out about the women at the time in England and how they were being exploited for others.While the three writers Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, and Virginia Woolf all wrote on women's roles and rights, they had different methods and arguments,

She believes this will benefit not just women but all of humanity. She explicitly argues and asks both men and women to better the lives of women. Wollstonecraft uses comparisons to show the situation of women. She writes “Tyrants of every denomination...they are all eager to crush reason; yet always assert that they usurp its throne only to be useful. Do you not act a similar part, when you force all women, by denying them civil and political rights...They may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent”. This shows Wollstonecraft’s opinion that men making policies that limit women are like tyrants and women are like slaves. At the time A Vindication was written there was a great debate on slavery in Great Britain which amplifies this comparison. She asks women to be more modest and to be women not what other want them to be. Moreover, she asks for men to give women the "grand blessing of life" which is independence. Wollstonecraft uses strong comparisons and direct statements to argue for women's rights such as

Woolf writes to find the conditions of women throughout the ages in England during the late 1500s. She finds that fiction of female characters during the time are far from what they were in reality. A Room reads “Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband”. This is Austen sharing that women in literature were not the same as women in real life, moreover, women were treated as property and didn’t get proper education because of their role is society. In this chapter of A Room Austen refers to empty shelves that could have been filled with literature from women, however, as it is written “The indifference of the world which Keats and Flaubert and other men of genius have found so hard to bear was in her case not indifference but hostility” women faced physical danger if they tried writing. Furthermore, Austen finds “‘Wife-beating’, I read, ‘was a recognized right of man, and was practised without shame by high as well as low. . . . Similarly,’ the historian goes on, ‘the daughter who refused to marry the gentleman of her parents’ choice was liable to be locked up, beaten and flung about the room, without any shock being inflicted on public opinion”. This shows women were treated as property and