ENGL200: Week 3 Mary Wollstonecraft’s Sexual Identity

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1/ Mary Wollstonecraft “anxious to render my sex more respectable members of society” challenges modern women to think about the way they are exploited by sexualization. What are your thoughts on this? Start a discussion on this with someone else in your “group”.

When I discussed this with my group member I bought attention to modern firstly to discern modern as now-day or modern Mary-day. We agreed that M.W had some interesting points and that the essay(Vindication of Women Rights) was definately more controversial then and something more seated into the past. This view altered. Women have alot of equal rights now such as the vote and equal working rights and whatnot. The laws have changed but the people’s mentality has not really changed. Women are still depicted as objects while men are the fishermen, trying their luck for the best-looking fish. So indeed exploitation via sexualization is not too far off from M.W’s era. The sex industry is going quite well and some artists have even started portraying sexuality into mainstream literature(50 shades grey). Sex has become rather normal for this generation too.
Your a bitch if u dont put out. Your a slut if u do. This mentality is what degrades women’s sexual identity. I believe this is the idea that M.W was getting at; that pre-conceptions of the female and the male must be challenged, reanalyzed and re-evaluated. This idea of entrapment is further supported by Prometheus Unbound and Ms Warrens Profession with their similiar depictions of limited choices and rights for women.

The varying conceptual ideas of women- 19th century versus 21st