Western Civilization II / Unit 6 WC2 0531 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading Wollstonecraft: The Position the Exam Expects
The idea
The exam asks which statement best represents Wollstonecraft's position, and the answer is that the liberating promise of the Revolution must be extended to women. To read the Vindication of seventeen ninety-two, ask what she claims about women, what she blames, and what she demands. The text read is Fordham's full edition.
In practice
Three passages, paraphrased. First, in the introduction she wishes to persuade women to acquire strength of mind and body, and calls the soft phrases of sentiment and delicacy synonyms for weakness: the claim is that women are rational creatures kept in perpetual childhood. Second, in her chapter on sexual character she says that to excuse the tyranny of man, ingenious arguments hold that the sexes should aim at different characters, and she denies women any deficiency of mind: the blame falls on education and custom, not nature. Third, she writes that all the sacred rights of humanity are violated by insisting on blind obedience: the demand is that the rights of man be the rights of humanity. That is the Revolution's promise extended.
Where people slip
The distractors describe other people. Fear of revolutionary chaos threatening Britain is Burke. Defending inherited privilege is Burke again. Women confined to education rather than politics, or to husband and children, is the position she attacks. Her claim is rights, and the exam wants the word extended.
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