Wollstonecraft and Rousseau on Education Flashcards
What is Rousseau’s Emile?
A treatsie on the nature of man and the nature of education
What does Emile trace out?
A fictional man named Emile and his life and educational development
What sort of education does Rousseau advocate for Emile?
Model education that creates in him all virtues idealised in natural man that have been corrupted by modern society
So, what does this education do for natural goodness of man?
It nurtures it
Why does Wollstonecraft disagree with Rousseau’s treatment of women?
Because he consigns women to traditional roles and supports an education that promoted inequality
Does Rousseau forward the same progressive education for girls?
No. Reinforces biological differences between men and women and affirms women’s purpose as solely relating to her body
What does Wollstonecraft think of Rousseau’s education for boys?
Appaluded his educational scheme for boys but she abhorrs his neglect of his wife Sophie
Why? Because….
he consigns Sophie to the role of wife and mother because he believes nature has limited her to these roles
Where has Rousseau’s progressive ideas on education gone?
Reverts back to a primitive type of education solely for women
What does it show?
An inconsistency in Rousseau’s core beliefs in humanity
What does man’s true state of nature envisage man as?
Noble savage, completely self-suffcient
What was the cause of his fall?
Duped by power and wealth as a result of increased sociability
Do men and women emerge from the state of nature equally?
Emerge unequally because woman’s inability to reason
But Wollstonecraft thinks this wrong. Men and women should leave nature on equal terms. But how?
Education is key to promoting social stability and engineering a social revolution. Education forms rational and virtuous moral subjects who help set better social tone.
Both thinkkers agree on fundamnetal principles of education but
Rousseau fails to see how this could apply to women as he is unable to recognise them as citizens
What does Rousseau say about the act of sex itself?
Inherent difference between men and women is evident in this act. Men do not need to try and please women.
Women are weak and passive because…
they serve to accomodate men’s needs and desires.
This reinforces Rousseau’s view that women…
must be daught to be docile
So a woman’s education should
be directed in a way to make them please their husbands - so they become objects of pleasure
All the while, Wollstonecraft identifies more fully with Englightenment thinking by…
promoting education that seeks to transform both men and womens characters through the development of reason
Both operate within Enlightenment thinking. This says…
Natural rights are accessible through the use of reason and that current institutions need to be transformed
Wollstonecraft works against the claim that female character
is determined by her body
Whereas Rousseau
serves to reinforce this idea.
What are Rousseau’s views on women’s dependance on man?
Dependent on men for so long that now require some external constraint upon them, slavery must continue
