Mary Wollstonecraft is writing the “Dedicatory Letter” to advocate for women’s rights and equality. She argues that women should have the same political and education rights that men enjoyed at that time. By writing the letter to French legislator M. Talleyrand-Périgord she wishes to achieve “justice for one half of the human race.”( Wollstonecraft 3). Wollstonecraft is writing in favor of the discourse community of women, more precisely French women. Talleyrand-Périgord is not part of the mentioned discourse community.
Quote 1 : 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? I know that you firmly believe you are acting in the manner most likely to promote women’s happiness; but who made man the exclusive judge ·of that· if woman shares with him the gift of reason?(Wollstonecraft 2)
Wollstonecraft is using reasoning to express her point. I find this strategy effective because she uses facts to compare and argue her point in a persuasive manner. I feel like she corners them into the understanding of her point.
Quote 2: And how can woman be expected to cooperate if she doesn’t know why she ought to be virtuous? if freedom doesn’t strengthen her reason until she understands her •duty and sees how it is connected with her real •good? If children are to be brought up to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; and the love of mankind, from which an orderly sequence of virtues arises, can be produced only by attending to the moral and civil interest of mankind; but the upbringing and situation of woman at present shuts her out from such investigations.(Wollstonecraft 2)
I found Wollstonecraft’s technique of persuasion in this quote very effective by appealing to the future of the nation. This quote is very interesting to me because Wollstonecraft argues about the power of influence when teaching the new generation. How could women be a good model for the children around them if they do not have the understanding themselves?
As I’m reading your response to the first quote, I realize that Wollstonecraft is doing something that Douglass also does–she uses comparison between two situations to argue for the one she is interested in. If men fought for equality for all in the French Revolution, then shouldn’t that also extend to women. And your second quote also picks up on something that Douglass does–he suggests a bleak future for the nation if things do not change.