Talk:Thoughts on the Education of Daughters/Archive 2

Feminist POV

I removed a couple of things from the article that where, in my opinion, clearly not NPOV. My edit was immediately reverted by Roger Davies. Why was my edit reverted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.57 (talk) 11:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Partly because there's a difference between discussing viewpoints (NPOV) and advocating them (POV); and partly because this article has been extensively reviewed by many editors during the exhaustive promotion process and therefore reflects broad consensus. Hope this helps, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply. I agree that discussing viewpoints is perfectly fine, but it should be made clear that it is the viewpoint of (in this case, I think) some scholars, for examply, by preceding the viewpoint with "according to (...)". As it is written, it is not clear that these viewpoints are being discussed, they are merely given, without much discussion. For example, saying it is paradoxical that Wollstonecraft confines women to the domestic sphere (in an attempt to outline a meaningful position for women in society), is basically saying that any position within the domestic sphere can not be (very) meaningful in society. This might be the POV of some scholar, but, if that is the case, it should be given as a qoute, not stated as a fact. I do not know who were involved in reviewing this article, but an article on this subject might naturally attract more feminist-inclined editors, meaning their consensus can still be POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.57 (talk) 11:35, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

It would appear the phrase being discussed is in the lead, which is meant to be a general overview of the article's contents. The attribution and in-depth discussion you're looking for appears later in the article. – Scartol • Tok 12:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Why is this a paradox? "Yet, in attempting to outline a meaningful position for women in society, Wollstonecraft paradoxically confines them to the domestic sphere." Is the domestic sphere not essential to society? This sentence makes no sense, anyone care to elaborate? Jcchat66 (talk) 01:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

• That is how scholars discuss the work. Because the most important scholarship on this book is written from a feminist perspective (and not a revisionist feminist perspective), it takes the position that confining women to the role of caregiver is not liberating. There are feminist critics who have challenged this view - who have argued that women in the late eighteenth century, though confined to domestic roles, made important contributions to society through those roles, but those scholars have not written about Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. Awadewit | talk 02:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Great :) If the scholarship is taking a particular point of view outright, then that needs to be pointed out. In this case, I think that there are two pieces of information: 1) Woll. gives women a meaningful position in the domestic sphere 2) some feminists criticize this as a paradox. Conflating the two ideas into one tacitly accepts the assumptions of her feminist critics. MisterSheik (talk) 02:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

How about: Yet, in attempting to outline a meaningful position for women in society, Wollstonecraft, according to feminist literary critics, paradoxically confines them to the domestic sphere. Awadewit | talk 02:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

That's great too. Maybe it could be written with less commas though :) MisterSheik (talk) 02:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I thought about parentheses: Yes, in attempting to outline a meaningful position for women in society, Wollstonecraft (according to feminist literary critics) paradoxically confines them to the domestic sphere. Awadewit | talk 03:02, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

This is just a preference, but I always feel that I'm being 'stopped' too much by punctuation. I would have written it like this: "Her feminist critics were outraged that Wollstonecraft, in outlining a meaningful position for women in society, confined women to the domestic sphere." I couldn't see a way to use less punctuation without sacrificing the beautiful ending to that sentence. MisterSheik (talk) 03:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Except that they weren't outraged. No scholar wrote "How dare Mary Wollstonecraft!" Scholars understand that writers are often trapped within the ideology of their own time (Poovey, for example, writes very well about this very topic). We need a different verb - something like "explain". Awadewit | talk 03:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to use your word, paradox, so I looked it up. It's a "proposition that despite sound reasoning from acceptable premises leads to a conclusion that is logically unacceptable." Then, when I recast the sentence, I wanted to say that "Feminist critics believed that her conclusions were logically unacceptable." I figured that being outraged was roughly the same as believing something to be logically unacceptable. I seems to me from what you've written that the critics were outraged by the conclusions, but not at Wollstonecraft. I think "explain" goes back to tacitly agreeing with the critics-- they aren't explaining anything except their own position, which we are trying to document, right? Anyway, I've got to go home and sleep. Thanks for being so amicable in the discussion. Also, I enjoyed reading about this topic. MisterSheik (talk) 03:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Being outraged is not the same as knowing something to be logically unacceptable. One is an emotional reaction, the other is a rational conclusion. Scholars are attempting to come to rational conclusions - that is why I would suggest a word such as "explain". It would be highly improper for us to characterize any of this scholarship as written in a tone of "outrage". Scholars were neither outraged at Wollstonecraft nor at her conclusions. I cannot find any passages in the works I read for this article that would support such a statement, can you? (They are listed in the "Bibliography" if you are curious.) I'm glad you enjoyed the article! Awadewit | talk 06:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for explaining. I haven't read the sources (of course). It seems clear that her critics disagreed with her conclusion that a meaningful position for a women could be contained in the domestic sphere. I went further and assumed that they were outraged, which might have been an overstep. Still, I don't see how anyone can logically conclude that the conclusion is logically unacceptable. It might be logically unacceptable given a contradictory premise-- in other words, it might be inconsistent with the suppositions (or maybe "values") of these feminist critics. If this is the case, then this might be what should be in the article? What do you think? 76.200.163.217 (talk) 07:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

What do you think about two sentences or one sentence divided by a semi-colon? The role Wollstonecraft outlines for women, which she viewed as meaningful, is predominantly domestic; twentieth-century feminist literary critics have interpreted this as paradoxically confining them to the private sphere. Awadewit | talk 20:55, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

That's even better... how about "The predominantly domestic role Wollstonecraft outlines for women -- a role that she viewed as meaningful -- was interpred by twentieth-century feminist literary critics as paradoxically confining them to the private sphere." 76.200.163.217 (talk) 03:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I like it. I have added it to the article. Awadewit | talk 14:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

• However, several critics suggested that these passages only have radical undertones in light of Wollstonecraft's later works.

OR

• Several critics have suggested, however, that such passages only seem to have radical undertones in light of Wollstonecraft's later works.

• One reason for the "such passages" is that it emphasizes it is not just the passages on single women; also, the hesitancy of the "seem" appears in the scholarship itself. We cannot be firmer than they are. Awadewit | talk 02:52, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. "Seem" was right. I was a bit overzealous. MisterSheik (talk) 02:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)