Are Women Human? 233reconceived, too. Indeed, the Rights of Woman’s penultimate chapter “On
National Education” outlines some proposals for reforming education in
the narrow sense.
But other social structures need to change, too — and dramatically. By
giving both men and women a capacity for reason, their creator endowed
them with ontological equality, but the social, economic, legal, and politi-
cal structures within which they live defy that original condition, rendering
women weak and dependent. Wollstonecraft complains that “the very con-
stitution of civil governments has put almost insuperable obstacles in the
way to prevent the cultivation of female understanding” (82). Against this
she protests: “Who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with
him the gift of reason?” (23).
Because of her theology, nature is (for Wollstonecraft, as for Rousseau),
a byword for the good. Yet women are its “fair defect” (71, 82).^13 Given the
“Gracious Creator’s” (95) benevolence and perfection, a defect of nature is
almost a contradiction in terms. In a fundamental ontological sense, women
are, as we have seen, men’s equals (95). Yet society actively and systemati-
cally discourages them from developing their reason, insisting instead that
they defer all matters of judgment to their male protectors (99). So women
are in the paradoxical position of possessing a capacity for reason but de-
nied opportunities to unfold this. “The present corrupt state of society...
enslave[s] women by cramping their understandings” (48). Instead of be-
ing educated to be rational, “the mighty business of female life is to please”
(215): encouraged to attend excessively to their appearance, seek pleasure,
and please men, they waste their lives in pursuit of fl eeting and superfi cial
things (219 –220).^14 Yet, as indicated above, Wollstonecraft is adamant that
this is an improper way for any being blessed with an immortal soul to
spend its time. Thus by nature, women are rational and immortal, yet the
society in which they live suspends them in a defective state by preventing
or dissuading them from developing their reason and engaging in activities
suitable to an immortal being (60, 99 –100, 174).
The corollary of Wollstonecraft’s association of morality with reason
is that by preventing women from developing their reason, society is also
forbidding them from becoming moral. As she asks Talleyrand, “how can
woman be expected to co-operate unless she know why she ought to be vir-
tuous? unless freedom strengthen her reason till she comprehend duty, and
see in what manner it is connected with her real good” (22). Just as “reason
is absolutely necessary to enable a woman to perform any duty properly”
(91), so no duty can be binding “which is not founded on reason” (23; see
also 89 – 90). Yet Wollstonecraft’s most damning critique of the failure to