Essay Two - Liberal Feminism, Wollstonecraft, and Snitow
Requirements
Each student will write a rougly three page essay.
This essay is due at 2 PM on Feb 4 either in my box in the Philosophy Office on the
4th floor of Morrill Hall or via email attachment. If
via email must be in MS Word 2007 or below or WordPerfect 12 or below
or pdf. I often cannot open
Microsoft Works or other files. You
should send with a return receipt or ask me to reply to make sure I have received the
attachment.
1. Your essay should be word-processed, double-spaced,
one-inch to one and one-half inch margins. It should be spell-checked and grammar-checked.
Pages Numbered. Font no smaller than 12 point.
2. You should have a cover page with title, date,
prompt, class and section, and your name.
3. Number each paragraph.
Bold your thesis. After the end of the essay, attach an OUTLINE of the essay
with the thesis clearly stated and at minimum a line for each paragraph.
4. Each essay should be approximately two to three
pages long (not including the title page or Works Consulted page).
5. You must include a Works Consulted/Cited Page
and/or Complete Footnotes/Endnotes. You may use MLA, Turabian, Harvard, or
University of Chicago in-text, footnote, or endnote styles. APA
is OK, provided you add page numbers to it. CAREFUL
AND CORRECT CITATION IS REQUIRED. WHEN IN
DOUBT, CITE. Remember that simply paraphrasing or changing every third word is
not OK. Quote and cite or radically summarize and cite. Use quotation marks when quoting
or indent if quote is five lines or longer. Guessing at where your information comes from
is not OK. Use page numbers in your in-text citations, footnotes or endnotes. Book or
journal titles are italicized or underlined. You need not consult
any other sources than what we have read for class. Those sources and any other
sources you consult must be included in your Works Consulted/Cited and cited in-text or in
footnotes/endnotes.
6. Your essay should define
any key terms used, use examples to illustrate and support
your argument where appropriate, and discuss likely alternatives
or respond to possible objections.
Please consult the Essay
Grading/Proofreading Rubric for further details.
Choose One of the following prompts
(questions/topics) to write about:
1. Explain why reason and education are central to
Wollstonecraft’s argument. What do
you see as one key strength and one key weakness of making these central given her time
period?
2. Why is
Wollstonecraft usually categorized as a liberal feminist?
Define liberal feminism and show how she exemplifies and/or breaks that
mold. (Tong Chapter One outlines the
characteristics of liberal feminism.)
3. Choose a thesis about Wollstonecraft in the
light of Snitow’s discussion of a divide in feminism.
Some questions to consider in arriving at a thesis might be: On which side of Snitow's divide does
Wollstonecraft primarily lie? Does the "divide" appear even within
Wollstonecraft's argument? (Snitow thinks it does on pp. 28-30. How might a feminist from the other side of the
divide critique Wollstonecraft's argument? Was her argument the most tactically effective
one that could be made in her time period?
4. Define Snitow's "divide".
Then, choose an issue such as women in the military, family leave for birth and
adoption, single sex education (such as schools for girls and women's colleges), using
battered women's syndrome as a defense in murder trials, or surrogate motherhood. Explain
how different sides of the "divide" might approach that issue.
5. Why does Snitow believe there is no
synthesis, no way beyond the divide? Granting the assumption of such a
divide, evaluate her argument.
6. Tong discusses three main criticisms of liberal
feminism on pp. 37-47. Choose Critique One or
Critique Two. In the light of our
readings so far, argue either that the criticism is or is not ultimately persuasive.
7. **Wildcard.