Wollstonecraft wrote this letter to assert women’s civil and political rights and obligations. She tells the recipient of the letter that men must learn to respect women who are oppressed by unequal laws and customs and that they are equal human beings. I think Wollstonecraft is part of a discourse community of women who advocates for women’s human rights. The recipient is, of course, an outsider of her discourse community. Because this is a letter to men who don’t consider women to be equal human beings.
Quote 1: “I address you as a legislator: When men fight for their freedom, fight to be allowed to judge for themselves concerning their own happiness, isn’t it inconsistent and unjust to hold women down?”
Identify the writing strategy you see Wollstonecraft using: questioning
Explain why you find this useful, persuasive, or effective in some other way: Through this question, she supports her argument, emphasizing how contradictory and unjustified men’s logic is. In this way, she asks very intuitive questions to the recipient in the letter.
Quote 2: “Fighting for the rights of women, my main argument is built on this simple principle: If a woman isn’t fitted by education to become man’s companion, she will stop the progress of knowledge, because truth must be common to all; if it isn’t it won’t be able to influence how people in general behave.”
Identify the writing strategy you see Wollstonecraft using:
Explain why you find this useful, persuasive, or effective in some other way: She is convincing her argument by presenting logical facts. It drew my attention by speaking her argument bluntly and talking about the evidence and facts that followed.
Yes–in the first quote she is using questions to highlight contradictory beliefs and a kind of hypocrisy. As for your second quote, she is really saying that its for their own good that men should extend women an equal education. She plays on the self interest to appeal t her audience.