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Comparison Of You Foolish Men And A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women

Decent Essays

Albeit You Foolish Men, by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft are both in defense of women, they are very different from one another. The issues in You Foolish Men are still happening in the twenty-first century. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in the poem, You Foolish Men, suggests that men lay unnecessary guilt on women, when, in reality, men should be blaming themselves. Sor Juana supports her argument by explaining how men mistakenly blame women. The author’s purpose is to point out the ways men complain so that women are never capable of pleasing them. The author writes in a sarcastic tone for men to see how they mistreat women. Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, …show more content…

In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft writes more about women’s equality from the political side. Sor Juana writes about women’s equality more from the domestic side in You Foolish Men. Wollstonecraft focuses on issues such as education, claiming that the only reason a man might seem smarter than a woman is because the man has received a higher level of education than women. “Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she [is] not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue; for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its general practice,” Wollstonecraft argues. Setting the tone for the poem as a whole, Sor Juana opens You Foolish Men with, “You foolish men who lay the guilt on women, not seeing you’re the cause of the very thing you blame.” Sor Juana writes in a sarcastic tone, criticizing men for the arrogant and foolish way they treat women. Suggesting that women are incapable of pleasing men, Sor Juana writes, “You fight their stubbornness, then, weightily, you say it was their lightness when it was your guile.” She goes on to say, “Why be outraged at the guilt that is of your own doing? Have them as you make them or make them that you will.” This suggests to men that they …show more content…

Life in the 1600s — the time period in which You Foolish Men was written — did not stray far from the traditions of women being inferior to men. Women relied on their husbands and fathers for nearly everything. Most girls in the 1600s only received a minimal education, whether it be at home or in an elementary school. While women were expected to do housework, wealthy women were somewhat exempt due to their prosperity. The 1700s — when A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was written — did not differ much from the 1600s. The 1700s is popular for the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in 1787, but women were not involved in either aspect. Despite that many women had served as laundresses, cooks, or nurses as they followed their husbands in the army, it appeared that a females only place in politics was in the policy of republican motherhood — the concept that it was a mother’s job to raise her children with values representing the new form of

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