Mary Wollstonecraft
2005
Author · Philosopher · Feminist
Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the first influential book calling for equality of the sexes. She was a passionate advocate of educational and social equality for women. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was published in 1792. It rebutted the accepted views of the day, challenged the opinions of Rousseau, and protested the limited sphere of womankind, forcing women to stay within the home and not allowing them to become educated.
Nobody, male or female, values freedom unless they have had to struggle to attain it.
The book was a sensation in its day. It was not republished for a century, but nineteenth century women’s rights advocates, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony acquired, read, and treasured it.
I love man as my fellow: but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then, the submission is to reason, and not to man.
Wollstonecraft lived a thoroughly nonconformist life. She had “modern” notions. A child of the Enlightenment and a freethinking deist, Mary was a firm believer in human reason. In a much more recent release of her two related works, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and the preceding A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), the word “reason” appears more than 150 times. Mary rebelled against society’s assumptions that women feel rather than think
I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.
Virtue can only flourish among equals.
The daughter of a farmer, Wollstonecraft taught school and worked as a governess, experiences that inspired her views in Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787). She became a professional writer, a rare occupation, especially for a single woman. In 1788 she began working as a translator for the London publisher Joseph Johnson, who published several of her works, including the novel Mary: A Fiction. She lived in Paris during the French Revolution, and wrote about both the revolution’s liberating ideals and its descent into violence.
Women are no more naturally subservient than men.
Wollstonecraft returned to London to work again for Johnson, and joined an influential radical group, which gathered at his home and included William Godwin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Holcroft and William Blake. Mary entered a relationship with William Godwin, and became pregnant, so they decided to marry. It was a happy but brief marriage. Mary gave birth to a daughter, also named Mary, on August 30, but died 11 days later on September 10, 1797, from septicemia, a common cause of death in this time period. This daughter, Mary, went on to become Mary Shelley, who wrote the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein.
Among Wollstonecraft’s late notable works are Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796), a travelogue with a sociological and philosophical bent, and Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman (1798), a posthumously published unfinished work.
Teach them to think! Treat women as rational creatures!... Every being may become virtuous by the exercise of its own reason... In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.