LIT150 City Colleges of Chicago Unit 2 Early Women Writers Answers
Readings
Mary Wollstonecraft, “A Vindication of the Rights of Women: Introduction”
Margaret Fuller, “Woman in the 19th Century: The Future of Women”
Jane Austen, “Love and Freindship”
In at least two short paragraphs, with 250 words or more be sure to answer the questions in complete, correct, detailed, and well-supported sentences
The readings for the week are all very quite different in style, tone, delivery, and content. However, all of them do make some powerful statements about the lives of women. Think about the ideas these early writers are sharing with their readers. Review the readings, and from your 21st century perspective, contemplate the messages that impact you the most. For this question, use at least two of the readings to describe the rights and privileges you feel are being addressed in each reading. Remember, you can make as many determinations through characters’ actions and words, as well as through what is NOT being stated in the works
Read and respond (in 5-7 sentences) to these TWO post.
1. From my 21st century perspective the messages that impact me the most was women empowerment and women rights. Women empowerment plays a huge role for women because they were trying to become stronger and more confident in their self especially in controlling one’s life and owning rights. It also focuses on the main concerns that women elaborate and recreate what it is they can be, do, and accomplish in a circumstance that they previously were denied. Mary Wollstonecraft ” A Vindication of the Rights of Women” explains that humanity’s greatest gift is it’s ability to reason. She also states since men and women are born with the same ability to reason, women should be able to enjoy just as much education, power, and influence in society as men do. The only reason women don’t seem as smart as men is because they wasn’t given the same education. Women were always labeled as weak because they couldn’t do as much as men could.
Women rights back in the 21st century wasn’t as equal as men , so women only had little privileges to do anything. Margaret Fuller” Women in the Nineteenth Century” was based on women rights and how she made a voice for the women. Women in the nineteenth century had it hard. The woman in the 19th century couldn’t vote, they couldn’t own property, and they were pretty much confined to being housewives for their entire lives. It was all focused on gender relations, and the way women was compared to men who had more power over women. In the 19th century women was restricted in so many ways that they were owned by men. Women have any privileges even though they tried to speak on the equal rights , they still made their voices be heard.
2. I believe the messages in the readings are very similar while some of the tones are different yet the same. It is very interesting how these women can speak of almost the same topics and be so different and the same in context. In the three writings I noticed how the women all have a common theme of the inferiority of women to men, and how we should be viewed as more than an alluring mistresses to them. We hold more power than what we are given by our male counterparts. Some of the writings speak of man becoming more insightful of the wonders of woman and their strengths that we possess in order to even run a household successfully.
Women without men are a force and if there wasn’t a natural instinct to procreate and bare children that men would not be necessary. I believe women were given the inferior nature because one knows how powerful we really are. Just because we do not have the muscles men have, do not mean we are not strong. I believe these writings are eye-openers for women to believe in themselves regardless of what society places on us as being feeble, weak beings. We bare children which men can’t do, we cook for them and the children as well as work and go to school while maintaining a whole household; give a man them same tasks and they’ll be crying for the first woman they see for help. Everything should be equal but the way society has that set up; it’s going to take forever and a day for that to come to light.
