A Genealogy of Autonomy: Part 2 Mary Wollstonecraft
Rousseau's concept of autonomy soon became extremely influential and inspired much Enlightenment philosophy. However, despite his radical and libertarian views, he was still a man of his time, particularly with regards to his views on the equality of women. Rousseau's book, Emile, or On Education, made a compelling argument that the purpose of learning was to create independent and responsible students. However, Rousseau's take on education and women was that he did not consider them deserving of equality (he believed they should be educated at home), writing that:
“Once it is demonstrated that man and woman are not, and should not be constituted the same, either in character or in temperament, it follows that they should not have the same education. In following the directions of nature they must act together but they should not do the same things; their duties have a common end, but the duties themselves are different and consequently also the tastes that direct them.
This was controversial even its day. Rousseau's views on the equality of women were the target of a scathing critique by Mary Wollstonecraft's in her book, The Vindication of the Rights of Women. Wollstonecraft argued that the idea that women and men should be educated separately was a justification for male tyranny and a desire for women to remain dependant. Powerlessness in women was the reason for women's perceived dependency and passivity, which kept them in perpetual servitude, and the neglect of women's education was the source of their misery. The origin of this neglect was in man's view of women as objects of desire:
“One cause of this ... I attribute to a false system of education, gathered by books written on this subject by men, who considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than rational wives ... when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.”
Wollstonecraft dismisses Rousseau's construction of masculinity and femininity, which equates masculinity with a Spartan brutism and femininity with frailty. It was this essentialist view of autonomy as inherent in masculinity that was the particular source of critique, that autonomy was an essence of being human (particularly a male human). This concept of essentialism is something that often creeps into notions of autonomy.