A critical treatise on Mary Wollstonecraft’s Feminist philosophy of education

Abstract

The paper is a critical literary cum philosophical discourse on the educational feminist philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft. Wollstonecraft feminism responded to the prevailing gender fissure of her time. Gender fissure arises from the indecorous gender identity ascribed to the female gender. The main problem of this study is the unequal rational status ascribed to the male and female genders, respectively. The central objective of this study is to interrogate the root cause of the educational disadvantages of the girl-child. With the aid of the feminist theory and the analytic, expository, and normative approaches, this study demonstrates that the hitherto educational disadvantages of the girl-child do not result from her less rational capacity, but rather from her socially subverted gender identity and the nurturing of improper education. The study finds Wollstonecraft’s feminist educational insights thoughtful, incisive, objective, and sustainably pragmatic.  Based on these findings, the paper argues that men and women are born equal, with equal rational capacity for education, and as such, individuals should be educated based on their natural dispositions and not based on their sex or gender. It recommends uniform education of both genders against a traditional stereotyped system of education. The study is qualitative research based on secondary data.