Final answer:
The idea that women's assigned roles enslave them bolsters Mary Wollstonecraft's feminist argument by demonstrating how those roles restrict women to lives of dependency and ignorance, thereby advocating for a reason-based social order with education for women to elevate their status in society.
Step-by-step explanation:
The idea that women's assigned roles enslave them is central to Mary Wollstonecraft's argument for women's rights and directly challenges the status quo of her time. Wollstonecraft posited that societal imposition of these roles inhibits women from exercising their rational capacities and confines them to a life of dependency and ignorance. Her work, particularly in 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman', emphasizes the need for a social order based on reason, where women are educated and treated as rational beings, thus enhancing their worth and dignity in society. Wollstonecraft, along with feminists like Susan Moller Okin, critiqued traditional moral theories for devaluing women by associating them with emotion rather than rationality and dignity.
Moreover, criticisms from scholars like Friedrich Engels highlighted the parallel between capitalist labor relations and patriarchal family structures, where women play the oppressed role of the proletariat. Engels's perspective complements Wollstonecraft's by providing a socio-economic analysis of women's subjugation within the capitalist economy and family life. By examining these various feminist critiques, it becomes evident that the liberation of women from assigned domestic and societal roles is a crucial step in achieving gender equality and a fairer social order, which reinforces Wollstonecraft's early feminist ideas.