Quotation
Last reviewed:
“I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves.”
Mary Wollstonecraft · Enlightenment feminism · Enlightenment · 1792
What does it mean?
The power she wants for women is self-government, the same rational control she thinks men claim as human, and not a project of turning the tables. The usual reading takes the sentence as an answer to the fear that educated women will tyrannise men. A rival reading hears a modest request that leaves power where it is, but self-command, in this book, requires an education that would change who holds authority over a mind. The words are her own English in the Vindication, and them means women.
Did Mary Wollstonecraft really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Wollstonecraft's own English in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, chapter 4. Them means women. The sentence answers the fear that educated women will tyrannise men. The wording is secure.
Where it comes from
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, chapter 4
Approximate date: 1792.
How to use it
When an argument for someone's freedom is made at a school governors' meeting in Birmingham, check whether the ask is domination in reverse or the power to direct one's own mind and life. She is explicit about which she means, and she thinks the second is constantly withheld by an education in dependence. The sentence does not settle a budget; It stops a freedom claim being rewritten, by its opponents, as a bid to rule men.
A mindset reading
Self-command, in her book, is not a mood of confidence but a capacity that education has to build. Wishing people freedom while withholding the studies that make judgement possible is, on her view, a sham. The line is often quoted as if it were gentler than the chapters around it; Those chapters are an attack on the system that makes cunning look like a woman's only route to influence.
Understand the philosophy
The Vindication argues that women are made into cunning dependants by an education in appearances, and that reason, virtue, and knowledge are the remedies. The key term is power over themselves, rational self-government, set against power over men, which she says she does not wish them to have. She is arguing with Rousseau's education of Sophie as much as with any priest. The English of 1792 is hers, in chapter 4.
- freedom
- power
- virtue
FAQ
What does it mean?
The power she wants for women is self-government, the same rational control she thinks men claim as human, and not a project of turning the tables. The usual reading takes the sentence as an answer to the fear that educated women will tyrannise men. A rival reading hears a modest request that leaves power where it is, but self-command, in this book, requires an education that would change who holds authority over a mind. The words are her own English in the Vindication, and them means women.
Did Mary Wollstonecraft really say this?
Well attested. Wollstonecraft's own English in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, chapter 4. Them means women. The sentence answers the fear that educated women will tyrannise men. The wording is secure.
Which work is it in?
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, chapter 4 Approximate date: 1792.