Vanessa Riley’s Regency Reflections

Woman Reading

Though she died just before the Regency began, Mary Wollenstonecraft (mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley) had an enormous impact on Regency ideas about the education of women.

The Original Feminist

In her ground-breaking book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollenstonecraft made the first strong and popular argument for women’s education. Though she’s considered one of the mothers of feminism, Wollenstonecraft’s feminism was very different from the feminism that makes headlines today. Instead of arguing for the right of woman to be just as raunchy as the guys, Wollenstonecraft was concerned  with women’s virtue: she argued that it was impossible for women to make wise  decisions if they’d never been taught how to think.

You couldn’t, Wollenstonecraft argued, raise a girl to only think about her looks, to only be concerned about snaring a husband, and then expect her to be smart enough to run a household or good enough to raise well-behaved children. If you wanted her to be fit to do her duties, you had to educate her.

Also, Wollenstonecraft argued, women were created as suitable mates for men, which meant they were of the same species – as Dorothy Sayers would later put it, women are human – and so what was good for men was good for women. God didn’t expect wisdom and virtue from men and silliness from women. If education gave men the tools they needed to be virtuous, education could give women those same advantages.

Controversy

Wollenstonecraft’s ideas weren’t completely accepted in her own day – they aren’t even now – but by stating her case so clearly and so well, she started a conversation that lasted all the way through the Regency and beyond. The “bluestockings” of the Regency – the bookish women – were Wollenstonecraft’s intellectual heiresses.

If you’re reading this today and you’re a woman who loves books, if you’re a woman who enjoyed a high-school and even a college education, Mary Wollenstonecraft is one of the brave pioneers you have to thank.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Originally posted 2012-09-24 10:00:00.

This month we’re been looking at the education of Regency students and scholars. The antics of schoolroom have provided fodder for many a novels. Did you know that many of your Regency Reflections authors have had interesting moments within the school walls as well.

So we asked our authors, “What was your biggest school days blunder?”

Laurie Alice Eakes
To be honest, I have nothing to share. I kept too low a profile in school unless I absolutely knew the answer just to avoid this sort of thing.

Unless this after school event gives it away…

I had a terrible crush on a geeky guy—Hmm, I married a computer geek turned lawyer geek—and wrote a poem to him. I can still remember part of it. Mind you, I was fifteen and painfully shy.

Oh, I wish I were a computer
Or a slide rule and equasions I could do,
For if I were one, or maybe both,
Some notice I might receive from you. . .

And so it went. Well, we were in the literary club together, and during a meeting, while sharing things, I accidentally pulled this poem from my notebook instead of the banal one I intended to share. . .

Oops.

Susan Karsten
This is going to sound really strange, since things have changed SO much. When I was in 2nd grade, in about 1962-63, I was asked, by my teacher, who I will call Mrs. Mustard, to come into the supply closet. This was a room, with shelves on 3 sides and a window. It was the teacher’s private little storeroom. She regretted to inform me that my red and white checked blouse had come untucked, and would I please not let that happen again. My, things have changed! By the way, this was a public school.

Kristy Cambron
I’ve always felt that as a student, you could try to blend in with the class and avoid any embarrassing moments. But alas, my  biggest education blunder was when I was in the on-stage role as the teacher. I was a corporate facilitator at the time and was training a class of more than forty adult learners on customer service soft skills. It was a great class – learners were energetic and engaged. Everyone smiled and seemed to throughly enjoy themselves  So when one learner approached me at the end of class, I hoped to hear positive feedback on her classroom experience. The last thing I expected was for her to tell me I’d just trained the class and no one had bothered to tell me that my suit pants zipper had been broken all day!

Naomi Rawlings
I accidentally went into the boys locker room before a basketball game. I didn’t realize the visiting team used the girl’s locker room, and I was just trying to get to the bathroom and following the sign that said girls. Fortunately I was in elementary school and it was a high school game. So I wasn’t old enough to get teased mercilessly for the rest of my day. But my cheeks still get red just thinking about it. I must have been the color of a tomato for the rest of the night!

Kristi Ann Hunter
Oh the options. I think the question might not be what was my biggest blunder, but which one am I willing to share in a public forum! When I was in sixth grade, my best friend had English and Math together. I feel quite bad for our teachers. We had to write a lot of sentences in English class. My friend and I made ridiculous sentences about polka dotted potties and remote controlled spitwads.

At the end of the day, in math class, we took turns sitting in front of each other and slowing pushing the other’s desk forward. We’d see how far we could get before the teacher got mad at us.

photos by Wikimedia Commons

What about you? What was your biggest schoolroom blunder?

Originally posted 2012-09-19 10:00:00.