To Gain the Affections of a Virtuous Man is Affectation Necessary?

The titular quote comes from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. While reading this awesome text, I kept (keep) coming across these wonderful quotes that I find perfectly applicable to today. I am almost half-way through, and what has really struck me about what I've read so far is the focus on what I've always considered a contemporary problem: the elevation of female beauty above all else.

She states the issue with a fitting metaphor: "The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove, that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers that are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity." Wollstonecraft is arguing that the emphasis placed on feminine beauty and civility and delicacy so heavily fostered during her time are detrimental to the mental growth of women. Hear, hear!

If a person is taught from an early age that the most direct path to happiness is being thin and pretty, what use can there be for education and intellect? Later Wollstonecraft writes: "Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, every thing else is needless, for, at least, twenty years of their lives." This may have been the quote that brought the argument home for me.

Contemporary society values physical beauty above all else. Actresses, musicians, models, and so on are all expected to fit a certain standard of beauty, and if they meet this standard, their minds are just plain unnecessary. If you need proof of this just think about Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, etc. We may not expect the same sort of civility and propriety (actually we seem to like just the opposite) but we do expect or adore physical beauty in such a way that renders intellect secondary.

Wollstonecraft also discusses the little intrigues and childish posturing of women in a way which I found enlightened: "for this exertion of cunning is only an instinct of nature to enable them to obtain indirectly a little of that power of which they are unjustly denied a share; for, if women are not permitted to enjoy legitimate rights, they will render both men and themselves vicious, to obtain illicit privileges." In my opinion, this is a serious and important distinction to make in regards to modern times. Women have many more options than beauty to gain power. It may still be the easiest or fastest way to gain power.

This sort of power is quite temporary though. As Wollstonecraft says, "the woman who has only been taught to please, will soon find that her charms are oblique sun-beams, and that they cannot have much effect on her husband's heart when they are seen every day, when the summer is past and gone. Will she then have sufficient native energy to look into herself for comfort, and cultivate her dormant faculties? or, is it not more rational to expect that she will try to please other men; and, in the emotions raised by the expectation of new conquests, endeavor to forget the mortification her love or pride has received? When the husband ceases to be a lover - and the time will inevitably come, her desire of pleasing will then grow languid, or become a spring of bitterness; and love, perhaps, the most evanescent of all passions, gives place to jealousy or vanity."

Relationships, whether marriage or dating, founded on physical attraction seem to dissipate rather quickly. Men - or women - who 'fall in love' with a person because of physical beauty find out sooner or later that either beauty fades or the honeymoon phase ends. A true relationship requires a meeting of the minds as much as a meeting of the bodies, and when men marry "alluring mistresses rather than rational wives" problems are sure to arise.

I find it depressing that this concept was so well articulated so very long ago and that little has changed. The most dramatic change, in my mind, that has occurred has been negative. Instead of women 'becoming more like men' (i.e. focusing on intellect rather than beauty), it appears that men have 'become more like women.' Whereas Wollstonecraft was condemning the treatment and subsequent behavior of women, I feel sure that today she would see drastic similarities in her argument with one which could be made about men. While men are certainly not held to the same standards of beauty as woman, the physical appearance of men seems more important now than ever.

Maybe someday the physical appearance of both genders (all genders) can take a back seat to intellect. I feel sure the world would be a better place if more time was spent reading and less time primping. But I could be biased...

What I've focused on in this post is just a small, small portion of the ideas presented in Wollstonecraft's book, and hopefully I will make a few more posts about the issues which intrigue me the most before finally reviewing the book itself.

I am reading this as part of the Year of Feminist Classics, and if you haven't joined up yet, I highly recommend heading over and doing so!