A Comparison of Chesterfield’s “From Letters to his Son” and Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.”
...y partial“ (p.632). They feel women’s lack of education render them senseless and weak. Chesterfield sees women as children but of a larger growth. “I never in my life knew one that had it, or reasoned or acted consequentially for four-and-twenty hours together“ (p.557) To Chesterfield, women are necessary and easy to get, essential in only establishing the man’s character in the fashionable part of the world. Wollenstonecraft is disturbed by the infirmity placed upon women, “The neglected education of my fellow creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women, in the particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes”(p.632) She insists women attain education and not depend on men to set their position in society. Although Chesterfield and Wollstonecraft have a similar mindset of the level at which women are placed, their attitudes of the roles which women should play are diverse. Chesterfield looks at women as a fashionable commodity, and also a spoiler of conversation. “A man of sense only trifles them, plays with them, humors and flatters them”(p.557). “For they love mightily to be dabbing in business(which by the way, they always spoil)”(p.557) Wollstonecraft, on the other hand, persuades women to rise above their predetermined stratum, make herself respectable and exercise her mind and body. “I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body” (p.634). “Her...