All of you point out that Wollstonecraft’s goal is to persuade society (also known as men) to treat women equally by allowing them access to an equal education. As Vanesa puts it “ he is trying to gather his attention to modify the French constitution and to implement A Vindication of the Rights Of Women, just as they did for the men. She is solely writing this letter to fight for woman’s education and their right to have a role in society bigger than what men kept perceiving woman as they should be.” And Selena adds, “She has an issue with the fact that women are meant to act a certain way based on this ideal men created, yet, they have no benefit to acting this way…. She sees this as a problem because women’s civil and political rights are being violated with these decisions that men keep making for them.”

In terms of her discourse community, here are some of your thoughts, which seem to capture the essence of what everyone was saying, and a few comments from me:

  • Moushmi writes, “After reading this letter, I could tell that Wollstonecraft’s discourse community included revolutionaries. She was a female revolutionist that was admired for her work during the French Revolution. She was adamant in arguing that women deserved basic human rights. She wasn’t afraid to mention the flaws of society, which made her well respected by other women who supported her.”

I would say she is both inside and outside this DC—she is a supporter of the revolution and therefore part of the DC but as a woman she isn’t one of them and therefore outside the DC

  • Marcus makes the point that “Wollstonecraft discourse community is the female population of France. She is fighting for the rights of females in the French Community. The Recipient of the letter is outside of the Discourse Community because Burke is being argued for the independence of females.” Similarly, Abigail writes, “Wollstonecraft’s discourse community is the same as the one she is writing for, the women in France. The recipient is part of a group outside of Wollstonecraft seeing that this letter was written in response of the former Bishops pamphlet.”

I would add that her DC is middle-class women but not French women since Wollstonecraft is actually English. So actually, the DC of French women is outside her DC, though she unites herself to them through gender and class. She is writing about French women because she wants to use the ideas of the French Revolution (equality for all—or at least all white men) to build her argument. As many of you pointed out in the discussion question, she uses the idea that to avoid being like those they fought against in the revolution, the recipient and his followers need to treat women equally in terms of education. 

  • As Jenny explains so well, “In this letter, it was mentioned that this new Constitution was created to develop patriotism in the country to make a change, but what Talleyrand said about the rights regarding men and women is opposite of what patriotism is. If there is no equal rights and freedom for women, then there really isn’t any difference before or after the French Revolution, or even the point of the new Constitution if they discriminate against women.”
  • Tyvannia (like Jeffrey and Fady) gives a slightly different response than most. Tyvannia writes, “I would identify Wollstonecraft’s discourse community as a women rights activist or any women powerful movement. Wollstonecraft would be a part of this group because she is trying to inform the outside of the issue and get it to change.” 

I would say this is a great point. Though there wasn’t a large group of women writing about women’s rights, and even less doing so explicitly, there was a small group and they were often part of the progressive group of intellectuals that supported the French Revolution. 

Finally, I want to call our attention to two succinct and cogent answers to the questions for this post: