Word Count: 1815
Today’s Role as Help Meet
Thesis Statement:
Though Wollstonecraft and Greer have both made significant contributions to the feminist movement, Wollstonecraft is more relevant to today’s feminist struggle as her ideas continue to inspire current day scholars, political writers, and the average woman through her advocacy of reason, education, and independence.
I. Introduction- Thesis
A. Mary Wollstonecraft background
B. Germaine Greer background
II. Advocacy of reason
A. Reason is Wollstonecraft’s starting point
B. Greer has radical ideas
III. Support Reason argument
A. Wollstonecraft says reason is the basis of human rights
B. Greer says liberation is her own personal freedom to whatever she wants
IV. Wollstonecraft believed education was key
A. Wollstonecraft argued women are not naturally inferior, but seem that way because of
inferior education
B. Greer argued no amount of education an make a woman free
V. Educational backgrounds and relation to struggle for equality
A. Wollstonecraft’s educational struggles
1. Relationship with Joseph Johnson
2. Wrote about education in A Vindication of the Rights of Women
B. Greer’s educational journey
VI. Wollstonecraft says power of reason and education leads to independence
A. Wollstonecraft’s need for survival made her work for financial support
B. Greer’s idea of independence is “freedom of spirit”
VII. Independence, a natural progression or a state of mind?
A. Wollstonecraft saw independence as the control of one’s wealth and destiny
B. Greer sees independence as the freedom of body and spirit
VIII. Wollstonecraft’s views are relevant today
A. Wollstonecraft is thought by modern womens rights advocates to have set the ground work for the movement
B. Greer has made a spectacle of herself
C. Women today have legal right to opportunity
Today’s Role as Help Meet
Not long after God...