Intersections Of Race, Class, And Gender

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Many of the authors covered in our texts discuss the intersections of race, class, and gender and how they are formed in society. For my essay I want to touch on what are the different races being discussed? What genders are we intersecting? How is each classes different and how does it differ with race? The pieces that will be mentioned touch on the fact that in society gender stereotypes are formed. They intermingle with one’s class and gender. The classes being discussed were upper, middle, and lower class. The two races being discussed so far were African American and whites. What about these two races connect with class? How does gender add more restrictions as to how act in society? Wollstonecraft is the first to share what is gender and how their society classified gender. She talks a lot about women and virtue and what virtue symbolizes. Wollstonecraft mentions women as virtuous and if women did not have virtue than they had no soul. The acquirement of virtue ought to aim at attaining a very different character: or speak explicitly, women are not allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls, that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to either virtue or happiness. Wollstonecraft is saying that women were choosing to be virtuous over being happy. To be virtuous in the mind of Providence was to be happy. Wollstonecraft in the above quote states, women were not allowed to have their own opinion or stand up for themselves for what they truly want, which would make them happy. To finish Wollstonecraft’s statement they have not obtained these desires they are not truly virtuous, but can be considered virtuous in the fact that women have souls. Women were innocent and had a “softness of temper” and “outward obedience.” Wollstonecraft also

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