How Education Reshapes Women; the Thoughts of Wollstonecraft

Ahmet Şahin ATA

Abstract

Eighteenth century was the time when women were intellectually poor, financially depended on men, educationally illiterate, juristically ignored and socially left behind. Women, then, faced with gender inequality, socially considered as a property of men and expected to be “fine” ladies. Despite all these handicaps, they were asked for to raise competent generations. Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, craftily criticizes this hypocrisy and puts forward the idea that a society that leaves the women behind has limited chance to develop. This research, in the light of this details, investigates the social conditions of that age and closely focuses on how education reshapes the status of women.

Key words: Feminist theory, human rights, Wollstonecraft, status of women, education