It has come to my attention that long after I wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, its readers have failed to grasp its vast and overarching themes. Though my work centered on the liberation and equality of women, I proposed many theories on what held women in such a subordinate state. In one of these such theories, I discussed the state of childhood, claiming that men attempted to confine women in this subjective state to enforce good conduct and obedience. Over the course of history, many men have argued a women’s role was to serve, to please, and to obey men. Children, similarly, are to serve, please, and obey their parents until their minds have been stored with knowledge, reason, and virtue. While male children are able to develop beyond the state of childhood, female children are not. Thus, the state of childhood is beautiful as it fosters development, but to maintain its beauty, humans must leave such a state. Forcing women to remain in a child-like state far beyond its necessary boundaries forms a state of childhood that is no longer beautiful, as “children” cannot develop the necessary faculties to make decisions when their knowledge hasn’t had time to grow, to dwell, and to fortify.
This message was not as popular at the time as it may be now; it seems it is more common for the majority to understand a woman’s development to continue past childhood. However, it is not entirely clear that the masses have understood my true and deep sentiments of childhood itself. Though my work’s purpose was to uplift women, I found it irresistible to expand my political thoughts elsewhere, even if it were only for a brief moment. To expand my claim of women’s weakness in a state of childhood, I provided an example of military men, who like women, were sent into the world before their minds had been stored with knowledge or fortified with principles. Like women, young soldiers had not exited the state of childhood. They had acquired little knowledge; they only possessed manners and customs which may seem like branches of knowledge, yet are never brought to the test of judgment or comparison. As such, both young soldiers and women acquire manners before morals, common nature before grand ideas of human nature, and they consequently become prey to prejudices; they blindly submit to authority.
It is baffling that such a comparison went unnoticed. How could a society advance from confining women in a state of childhood, yet rationalize recruiting children for war? It is nothing short of deplorable that a nation’s army could spend such a significant amount of its funding recruiting on Twitch, a platform where an abundance of its users are children. As I pointed out long ago, children cannot develop the necessary faculties to make decisions when their knowledge hasn’t had time to grow, to dwell, and to fortify. Children, in this light, are impressionable beings. They are prey to prejudice, they submit blindly to authority. To sow seeds of the military’s glory into their minds long before they develop the ability to contrive morals is a reprehensible abuse of power, one I argued women have long been subjected to. As such, I call for the U.S. Army to immediately halt the recruitment of impressionable minds on the esports streaming service, Twitch.