Jean Jacques Rousseau was one of the most influential thinkers. He published a book by the name Emile or on education in the year 1762 in Europe. Wollstonecraft was an English writer and also a philosopher. She released her book named "A Vindication of the rights of woman" in the year 1792 in England. Rousseau argues that a woman is supposed to be subordinate to a man between his theoretical stance and his imperatives however there is a considerable tension while Wollstonecraft claims that women are not naturally inferior to men because they lack education.
Rousseau argues that if you educate women like men, men will lose power over them. According to him, in the union of sexes, each contributes to the common end but do not do it in the same way. In his words, a man should be active and robust while a woman should be weak and passive (Rousseau, 1762). He concludes that a woman is made to please a man and to be subjected and therefore ought to make herself pleasing to man. Rousseau states that the role of a father to his children is to be the real teacher as a child will be better educated by a father who is informed than by the most skillful person in the world (Rousseau, 1762). Also, a father had to provide basic needs to his family. Also he argues that, women had a responsibility to watch over children more closely than men and can influence them more, and their care is more critical to the peace within the family, and as a wife a woman is supposed to make herself pleasing to her husband and compel him to discover his strength and put it in use (Rousseau, 1762). He also points out that the cause of gender inequality is nature. He states that men and women come together by chance and women nurse their young only for as long as the child depends on them for survival and after the child is strong enough to rely on itself they separate and live alone again. By nature, Rousseau defines nature as the possible prehistoric place and time where human beings live uncorrupted by society (Rousseau, 1762). Hence, Rousseau argument is convincing because he explores the possibility of a less demanding form of citizenship less dependent on heroic models and consequently more compatible with a degree of independence among ordinary people.
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Wollstonecraft states that, through nature, women can take care of the nest and be useful to the society at the same time and that it is a man who is limited to a woman, not God while Rousseau believes that women through nature have endowed with the duty to give birth to and raise the child (Wollstonecraft, 1989). Also, Rousseau argues that men and women have different spheres and so each must be educated to fulfill that specific sphere while Wollstonecraft said that because women are rational the principles that guide their life should be the same as the principles that govern men's lives (Wollstonecraft, 1989). Wollstonecraft also argues that a man is responsible for a woman discontentment. This because only when woman and man are equally free and are similarly dutiful in the exercise of their responsibilities can there be freedom. In her argument of gender equality, she declared that both women and men were human beings endowed with equal rights to liberty, life, and happiness and hence she insisted that women should be free to enter the business and pursue professional careers.
On the relationship between men and women, Wollstonecraft says that men look for a beautiful wife while women are quickly captivated by men who are charmers. Mary, characterize women capacity through education. She indicates that through education, women will strengthen the marriage relationship. Wollstonecraft does not appeal to nature as Rousseau does because she appeals it to reason that women appear to be in the most natural state. Hence Wollstonecraft argument is convincing because her facts rely on logic within the framework of the worldview of the time, within Christian morality and conformity to God's will as ultimate goals.
References
Rousseau, J. J. (1762). Emile, or Education. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
Wollstonecraft, M. (1989). A Vindication of the rights of women, New York: New York University Press.
