Week 2, Seminar - J.S.Mill and Mary Wollstonecraft

Week 2 of History and Context, our first seminar...I think it went pretty well!
Here are the notes I took:

Mary Wollstonecraft

• Critical on men
• Her writing made her come across as strong minded, did this mean people 'believed' her more?
• Education was crucially important
• Patience and flexibility make an established woman
• Women need protection?
• Women should take control of their lives
• Reason and education are what women need
• Women mature faster than men
• Hypercritical - she preached about a certain way of life for women, yet did not live by her own 'rules'
• Some may say that she couldn't help it - she was shaped by the society she lived in
  
• Women are not inferior to men, they only appear to be because of their education
• Women are made weak by their society
• Women do not have enough to do which causes romantic fantasies

John Stuart Mill

• Live how you want to as long as it harms no-one else
• Society should not be able to control us
• Utilitarianism

Any links between Mill and Wollstonecraft?

• Mill was in 'favor' of women - being one of the first people to believe that women should have a vote
• He believed in living independently as long as no-one else was harmed
• Wollstonecraft believed that women should be independent when needed (not married) and that education was an important part of a women's life.

A small link can be found here.