" (Janes, 1978) It was also not due to Wollstonecraft's "assertion that the 'sexes were equal" or due to her demand for opportunities for education for women. The proposals stated by Wollstonecraft for education met with public approval and her political and economic views are stated to have "...excited little negative or positive comment at the time of publication." (Janes, 1978) In fact, it is stated by Janes (1978) that the "element that cam disturbingly close to men's bosoms was the attack on the sexual character of women, the denial that a peculiarly feminine cast of mind was desirable." (Janes, 1978)
III. Nicholson (1990)
The work of Nicholson (1990) entitled: "The Eleventh Commandment: Sex and Spirit in Wollstonecraft and Malthus" that Wollstonecraft "reaches a concept of female emancipation hardly realized in nearly 200 years...by rigorous deduction from her image of God." However, Wollstonecraft's sexual argument is stated to hinge "on a spiritual one: immortality demands a certain kind of sexual life now." (Nicholson, 1990) Her work was generally approved of at the time of the 'Vindication' (1792) however, it is stated that by the time of 'Population' (1798) "things had changed: The shift in the treatment of feminist works that seemed to threaten the established relations between the sexes": most disturbing of all was the attack on the sexual character of women...Men who were glad to agree that mind is of not sex were not pleased to acknowledge that manners (or power) should be of not sex." (Nicholson, 1990) Nicholson states that equalizing thought "became anathema." (Nicholson, 1990) Wollstonecraft through "an unbroken chain of deductions...from her image of God" is led to the emancipation of women in her reasoning.
IV. Barker (1989)
The work of Barker- Benfield (1989) entitled: "Mary Wollstonecraft: Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthwoman" states that the largest amount of the prose of Wollstonecraft was "devoted...[to] politics." However, Wollstonecraft criticizes as well the "over-developed sensibility" of women and particularly in England in her writing of women and their obsession "with 'shopping' fashions and emulation...
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