The Struggle for Equality Since the turn of the eighteenth century, women as a group have struggled to gain equal rights and the respect that men have had all their lives. Women were terribly discriminated against in a number of ways. One reason for the discrimination is solely based on the non-educated portion of women everywhere. Another reason women were discriminated was due to people seeing them as "men's property"ÃÂ or objects instead of equal human beings.
According to Mary Wollstonecraft in Vindication of the Rights of Women, she stated that the lack of education of women is the main source of the misery that they endure during their lives. Wollstonecraft feels that women act the way they do as in manner and the way they let men rule their lives, show that women's minds are not in a healthy state. Which can go back to the idea that women suffer from a lack of education.
Writing in the 18th century, Mary Wollstonecraft i...
English: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman titl...
Title page to the second (revised) edition of Will...McKay, Hill, and Buckler stated that women were discriminated against when they tried to enter into an educational setting. An example of this is Madame du Chatelet. She was a woman trying to obtain an education at the Royal Academy of Sciences, but was again denied due to her gender. Therefore, she had to rely on private tutors to get her education. She also felt that the lack of women's influences in science was due to the lack of education to women and unequal education if a women could get into a school (McKay 608). Another example of women and education was in the medical field. They were severely restricted due to always being denied admission into medical colleges; therefore they did not have the degrees that were required to practice as physicians and surgeons. Due to this women became virtually excluded from...