242 Ruth Abbey
tunities as, and diminishing their dependence upon, men will allow them
“to feel the dignity of a rational will that only bows to God” (61); it will
“let them attain conscious dignity by feeling themselves only dependent
on God” (62); and it will empower them “to act with consonant indepen-
dence and dignity” (124). Given their ontological equality, women’s social,
political, legal, intellectual, and economic dependence on men strips them
of their dignity as humans. Wollstonecraft’s society strips women of their
human dignity in the way it educates them (in both senses of the term) (80;
see also 176). The attainment of “true dignity of character” requires them
to be educated in a manner antithetical to that recommended by Rous-
seau (67). Perhaps Wollstonecraft’s strongest statement about the need for
women to enjoy human dignity comes in her rallying cry that “it is time to
effect a revolution in female manners — time to restore to them their lost
dignity — and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reform-
ing themselves to reform the world” (71).^27
The ideal of respect plays a seminal, and complementary, role in the
intersecting personal and political moralities Wollstonecraft espoused: “re-
spect for man, as man, is the foundation of every noble sentiment” (153).
She championed both self-respect and the mutual respect that only becomes
possible in relations of equality. Women should “be taught to respect them-
selves as rational creatures” (122). A self-governing being earns its own re-
spect, and little can be dearer to it than that (128). One of the many benefi ts
of granting women rights is that “[we] would learn to respect ourselves”
which would, in turn, improve the quality of women’s affection for men
(179). Women do not currently seek men’s respect: they “are only anxious
to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their
abilities and virtues exact respect” (29; see also 62). These twin aspects of
respect thereby become symbiotic, with self-respect enhancing respect for
others and vice versa. So along with all individuals respecting themselves,
Wollstonecraft wants to see men and women respecting one another, and
indeed, for respect to become the currency of all social relations. When
society is in a healthy state, respect circulates in all spheres — marriage
(76, 123, 129), parent-child relations (75, 187 note), among friends,^28
within schoolrooms, between citizens. Such respect might change its
form and intensity from one sphere to another, with “the modest respect
of humanity, and fellow-feeling” (153) uniting citizens. But these all be-
long to the species of feeling Wollstonecraft calls respect, which means
recognizing the rational capacity and equal human worth of other persons.^29
Respect is the antonym to tyranny in Wollstonecraft’s political-moral
economy.