Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
British
Romanticism
More than any other woman in Britain, Mary Wollstonecraft represents the eighteenth-century movement in feminist thought. Wollstonecraft’s alcoholic and abusive father failed to provide a consistent living for his family, so her childhood was spent in the turmoil of poverty and violence, and she had to earn a living early in life as a lady’s companion, a teacher, a schoolmaster, a translator, and eventually a writer. Wollstonecraft’s writing reflects her belief in the education of women as a remedy for inequality. She abhorred the conditions of women of all classes and the limited opportunities afforded them. Socially and politically active, Wollstonecraft became part of a group of radical dissenters who questioned the role of the individual in all phases of human life and espoused revolution as a means of liberty. She spent two years in France during the latter stage of the French Revolution, known as the Reign of Terror, and she recorded her observations in An Historical and Moral View of the Origins and Progress of the French Revolution; and the Effect it Has Produced in Europe (1794). In the treatise, Wollstonecraft expresses her disillusionment with a revolution which, in spite of assurances for total equality, excluded women from the political arena. Wollstonecraft faced a lifetime of personal and relational challenges; she survived as a single mother, only to die during the birth of her second daughter. That daughter, Mary Shelley, went on to create the classic Romantic novel Frankenstein.
Foremost in Wollstonecraft’s most famous and widely read work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is the call for equal rights for all human beings and equal education for men and women. Like her eighteenth-century predecessors, such as Mary Astell and Elizabeth Carter, Wollstonecraft admonishes her own sex against the frivolity that limits their ability to think rationally and weakens their characters. Her argument focuses on making women better wives and mothers through a combination of dignified treatment and intellectual encouragement. She also champions the right of women to participate in middle class work for financial security. The essay was well received in its initial publication, but its revolutionary ideas were not truly appreciated or realized until over one hundred years later, when the feminist movement revived Wollstonecraft’s work and named her as the one of the most influential voices in the fight for women’s rights.
Consider while reading:
- Name some of the causes of what Wollstonecraft calls “women’s degradation.”
- What roles do women play in their own oppression?
Written by Karen Dodson