A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (ch. 1-4) - Mary Wollstonecraft

A lot that was said in Wollstonecraft's text back in 1792 seems to eerily still ring true.  Much has changed but much also has not.

Women tying their pride and self-worth on her looks still sadly ring true today.  Decorating yourself and spending a lot of time and money on it is generally still the norm.  The justifications that I have heard from this activity include
(1) I work hard and I deserve to treat myself - in other words, materialism and consumerism become the material (false) reward for our Protestant Work Ethic, a prevalent idea that doesn't get investigated enough!
(2) I was to look sexy and good to the opposite sex and also make myself feel good - in other words, mistaking dressing scantily and getting cat calls or other objectified "compliments" as a form of empowerment.

I, too, fell into this trap of a mindset.  Gender roles and expectations are taught and reinforced to us from childhood and into adulthood.  Pink is for girls, trucks are for boys, women don't become carpenters and so on.  Well, says who?!  I agree with Wollstonecraft that education is an important tool for women's empowerment, but not just rational education but spiritual education too.  Education is but a tool, women must also know how to apply the knowledge that they obtain.  Why is it that despite the relatively high level of education of women in the West received, we not the less subscribe to shallow activities that relate to our vanity and thus to our self-worth?  Is it because our sensibility takes our our rational mind?  The 'wants' often overtake the 'needs' after all.

Keeping women and other people of colour ignorant was certainly a clever ploy of some powerful men of the past.  Obedience is consider a virtuous value - why is that?  This still rings too today.  Women who stand up and speak their minds get labeled male-like or 'not a good' girl (if she is a young woman).  The false bias of women as children is still around today.  Just last week, a colleague of mine referred to one woman in her 40's as a 'girl'.  I think he realized his error and tried to save his face by telling me, "It was only a joke".  This concept of obedience as a good virtue is similar to how we consider a dog, a good dog - essentially by his obedience.  Something to think about.