A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman NCE 3e: An Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Contexts Criticism: 0 (Norton Critical Editions)

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) followed up her defense of the French Revolution against Edmund Burke in her "Vindication of the Rights of Men" (1791) with a second book, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792). It is an extraordinariliy penetrating analysis of the suppression of women in many ways: the withholding of education and concentration on acquiring "accomplishments" that will please men; the blocking of any path to a means of earning their own living instead of having to depend on a husband; the closure of professions, business, politics, and any serious civic career; the corruption of imposing a focus on fashion and even hiring wet-nurses instead of nursing their own children; and most subtly, praising women for beauty, obedience, compliance, instead of for reason and virtue (a demeaning sort of praise). The result of men's domination of women is that women become "cunning" as a way of gaining control even though forced into the role of slaves. Wollstonecraft's account of the endless ways men exert and abuse power over women is penetrating and thorough. It's depressing to realize that almost all of what she says is still relevant! Her style is somewhat clogged--circulocutious, confusingly metaphoric, and often wordier than need be. But the content is so compelling that it repays patient persistence, and virtually every page opens a reader's eyes to some abuse to which he (or perhaps even she) was previously oblivious. A general reader might prefer an edition that simply reprints the text, but as always the Norton Critical Edition gives a reliable text and provides excellent notes, selections from contemporaries that show backgrounds and contexts, a selection of critical commentaries, and a chronology and bibliography. Even if a reader only dips into these materials, I think they make the volume worth the modest price. Most highly recommended!

A brilliant piece of literature.

Good quality book. A classic, and a must read. Has many fascinating ideas to discuss and think over.

I enjoy Norton critical editions because they give so much attention to the critical tradition and to the textual scholarship. Great book!

The book is fine and readable, but half of it is affected by water damage that was not disclosed.