Gender equality and the binary of weak and strong Essay (Essay Sample)

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Gender equality and the binary of weak and strong
The binary of strong and weak is elaborated by the texts, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft and Ihara Saikaku’s Life of Sensuous Woman (1686) by showing gender equality as strength and inequality across gender as weakness. In her essay, Wollstonecraft sought to make the argument that unequal education and laws for men and women subjected women to conditions much similar to slavery at the time. She made the assertion that marriage was no better compared to prostitution then. Saikaku was a Japanese poet who wrote many fascinating stories between the period of 1686 and 1682. Wollstonecraft paints a picture of a masculine dominant society with numerous privileges bestowed to men over women. Gender equality subjugates gender inequality in any progressive society.
Mary Wollstonecraft believes that opinions and manners of both men and women, ought to be shaped by the society in which they live in. It is her opinion that the best education is that which empowers the body and builds the heart. “In simpler terms, the kind of education that will enable an individual acquire traits of virtue that makes them independent.” (Wollstonecraft,134). She tends to view it as a travesty to refer to any being as being virtuous when the virtues of such a being do not emanate from its own reasoning. Therefore, it is her assertion that if men and women are subjected to similar education, they are all capable of developing their own reasoning and question perceived morals and virtues in existence on their own. Both of these texts break the binary of strong and weak by showing that any human being whether a man or a woman has the ability to think and make judgements on their own. The rationality of the decisions that they make is not pegged on any particular gender therefore, it is not a matter of strength that men are virtuous, they just have more of an opportunity to act on their virtue. Any human being whether a man or a woman has the ability to think and make judgements on their own. The rationality of the decisions that they make is not pegged on any particular gender. She blames the disorderly form of education offered to women and reckons that if women were given an orderly kind of education, they would have a bigger capacity to make more reasonable judgements. The corrupt state of society, she says, has led to women enslavement and failed to sharpen their senses. She perceives women to be strong minded and wise but are only bestowed very little knowledge.