One of the most important issues that Mary Wollstonecraft addresses in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is that of women's education and its place in society. In Wollstonecraft's day, the education of young women was very limited at best -- instead of being provided with a thorough and orderly grounding in things like "the grand ideal outline of human nature" (Wollstonecraft, 34), they were encouraged to strive toward "corporeal accomplishment", essentially leaving them to their own devices insofar as understanding ideas was concerned. At the same time, education for young men took the opposite approach, seeking to give them a grounding in reason (33). This disparity between men and women is troublesome in itself, but the fact that women were then considered inferior by their very nature is even more difficult. It is this last misconception that Wollstonecraft sets out to debunk and disprove, through analysis of the influences of education on both men and women.
Wollstonecraft is particularly indignant about the way that feminine ignorance (borne from lack of proper schooling, of course) is disguised "under the specious name of innocence" (28). She grants that "children [...] should be innocent", but quickly adds that "innocence" connotes vastly different things when applied to adults; where in a child innocence is simply a result of lack of experience, in men and women "it is but a civil term for weakness" (29). The crucial difference in its application is that children are expected to outgrow their innocence as they mature and their reason develops through education, where education is broadly defined as attention that will build the foundations of understanding in a developing mind "so that man may only have to proceed, not to begin, the important task of learning to think and reason" (30). Women, on the other hand, are expected to remain innocent for their entire lives.
Firstly, she argues, what little education there is for women is given in such scattered, piecemeal fashion that it could not possibly have any benefit for those being instructed. Instead of being taught in an orderly fashion, young women are subjected to a "disorderly kind of education", "random exertions of a sort of instinctive common sense" which are "never brought to the test of reason" (32). Since the approach is so wildly undisciplined, any knowledge that even the cleverest of women could glean from this sort of education is bound to be inadequate. Making the matter even worse is the fact that
learning is with [women], in general, only a secondary thing, [and] they do not pursue any one branch with that persevering ardour necessary to give vigour to the faculties, and clearness to the judgement.... They dwell on effects, and modifications, without tracing them back to causes; and complicated rules to adjust behaviour are a weak substitute for simple principles. (33)
The point that Wollstonecraft is driving toward is that a woman, educated in such a haphazard fashion -- if indeed she is educated at all -- cannot possibly be expected to equal or surpass an educated man in terms of apparent intellect; instead she will have an "appearance of weakness", brought about by this facet of her upbringing (33). At this point it is not made overt, but the implication here is one that it is important not to miss: women are not born to be "gentle, domestic brutes" (29), but rather they are made to be that way by being poorly educated.
This argument is revolutionary because it denies that men and women are intellectually dissimilar, instead blaming apparent differences on upbringing or on long-held societal biases toward men. These biases in turn stem from observations that women seem to be of lesser acumen than men, but if the women who were being observed had also been taught in the manner of that time period then they could hardly be expected to display great keenness of wit. This cycle is a vicious one; Wollstonecraft's recognition of the causality, with education placed at the forefront as one of the most critical factors, is an important step toward rectifying the problem.
To corroborate her claims about the intellectual equality of men and women, Wollstonecraft draws an apparently baffling analogy between women and male soldiers serving in an army. The comparison becomes a valid one when she points out that insofar as education is concerned they are equals, both "sent out into the world before their minds have been stored with knowledge or fortified with principles" (33). The mannerisms that each develop in response to the environment to which they are exposed is a second basis for comparison: "from continually mixing with society, they gain [...] a knowledge of the world", and tend to "practise the minor virtues with punctilious politeness" (33). The only difference between them is the way in which they are perceived; both have had extremely limited educations, learning "manners before morals" by dint of public exposure and experience, but soldiers are still "reckoned superior to women" (34).
That this disparity still exists even in the face of such evident equality is the crux of the example, and of the argument itself. Wollstonecraft even likens the purpose and role of soldiers to that of women: "taught to please" by their superiors, soldiers "only live to please" by following orders, "blindly submitting to authority", just as women are held in thrall by their husbands or other male authority figures (34). Both are "thrown out of a useful station by the unnatural distinctions established in civilized life" (34). That having been said, there is still no fathomable reason for women to be considered lesser beings than soldiers -- particularly after it is quite clearly established that they are equal in so many respects.
According to Wollstonecraft, the most readily apparent reason for the continued disparity is the structure of society itself. Things like "riches and hereditary honours" have effectively made women into non-entities, pawns whose only use is "to give consequence to the numerical figure"; and society itself is rife with such "gallantry and despotism" that women are forced into "blind obedience" (34). It is an unhappy situation for women, to be sure, but one that might be possible to change: "Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it," says Wollstonecraft, "and there will be an end to blind obedience" (34). But ending this kind of servitude would by no means ensure immediate equality between men and women.
It has already been demonstrated that educational parity in and of itself does not achieve the results that Wollstonecraft seeks: even though soldiers have essentially the same level of schooling as women who are confined to their homes and social circles, the soldiers are still thought of as superior, "though in what their superiority consists [...] is difficult to discover" (34). Her somewhat disappointing conclusion is that overcoming the disastrous "blind obedience" to which women have been made susceptible through educating them will not put an end to the tyrannical domination of men in society. It will merely create a jumping-off point for women who seek further liberation; and there can be no doubt of the side on which Wollstonecraft stands when it comes to whether or not this is necessary -- an ill-educated and coquettish woman relying solely on her husband for guidance and support is akin to "the blind [leading] the blind" (32). Thus even if education for women will not lead to their immediate emancipation -- indeed, it cannot, because of societal biases that must yet be torn down -- it is still an entirely essential endeavour.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Miriam Brody. London: Penguin Books, 2004.