Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate for women's rights whose Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is one of the earliest and most important works of feminist philosophy. Writing in the radical ferment of the French Revolution, Wollstonecraft argued that women are not naturally inferior to men but appear so only because of deficient education and social conditioning, and that extending rational education and political rights to women would benefit all of society. Her bold life and tragic early death at thirty-eight made her a controversial and iconic figure.
Key Ideas
Key Contributions
- ● Wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, one of the foundational texts of feminist philosophy, arguing that women's apparent inferiority is the result of deficient education, not natural incapacity
- ● Extended Enlightenment principles of reason, liberty, and rights to women, challenging the exclusion of half of humanity from the promises of rational emancipation
- ● Developed a critique of gender-based education, arguing that educating women solely for ornament and obedience degrades both sexes and weakens society
- ● Argued that genuine virtue requires the exercise of reason, and that confining women to sentiment and dependence prevents them from becoming moral agents
- ● Challenged Rousseau's doctrine that women should be educated solely to please men
- ● Pioneered the analysis of the relationship between economic dependence and women's subordination
Core Questions
Key Claims
- ✓ Women are not naturally inferior to men — they appear so only because they have been denied rational education and confined to dependence
- ✓ The mind has no sex — reason is the same capacity in men and women, and both deserve equal cultivation
- ✓ Educating women solely for ornament and obedience degrades them to the level of slaves or children and corrupts the entire social order
- ✓ Genuine virtue requires the exercise of reason — sentiment without rational development leads to weakness, not moral goodness
- ✓ The rights of man and the rights of woman are inseparable — you cannot consistently defend one while denying the other
- ✓ Economic dependence is the root of women's subordination — financial autonomy is essential to genuine freedom
Biography
Early Life
Mary Wollstonecraft was born on April 27, 1759, in Spitalfields, London. Her father was a failed farmer who squandered the family's modest fortune and abused his wife. Wollstonecraft's early life was marked by financial instability and domestic violence — experiences that sharpened her sensitivity to the injustices suffered by women in a patriarchal society.
Largely self-educated, Wollstonecraft worked as a lady's companion, a schoolmistress, and a governess before turning to writing as her primary vocation. She joined the radical publisher Joseph Johnson's circle in London, where she encountered William Godwin, Thomas Paine, William Blake, and other leading radicals.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Wollstonecraft's first major philosophical work, A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), was a swift reply to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, defending the principles of the French Revolution against Burke's conservative critique. Her landmark work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), extended the Enlightenment ideals of reason, liberty, and education to women.
The central argument is that women's apparent inferiority is not natural but produced by an education designed to make them ornamental, dependent, and submissive. If women were given the same rational education as men, they would prove equally capable. Wollstonecraft attacked Rousseau specifically for his doctrine (in Emile) that women should be educated solely to please and serve men. She argued that genuine virtue requires the exercise of reason, and that confining women to emotional dependence degrades both sexes.
Personal Life and Travel
Wollstonecraft traveled to Paris in 1792 to witness the French Revolution firsthand. There she began a relationship with the American adventurer Gilbert Imlay, with whom she had a daughter, Fanny. Imlay's infidelity drove Wollstonecraft to two suicide attempts. Her account of Scandinavian travels, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796), combined travel writing with philosophical reflection and is considered one of her finest works.
Marriage and Death
In 1797, Wollstonecraft married the philosopher William Godwin after discovering she was pregnant with their daughter, Mary (the future Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein). She died of puerperal fever on September 10, 1797, eleven days after giving birth, at the age of 38.
Legacy
Wollstonecraft's reputation suffered after Godwin's posthumous memoir revealed details of her personal life — her love affairs and suicide attempts scandalized conservative society. For a century, her ideas were dismissed because of her unconventional life. The women's suffrage movement and subsequent feminist thought restored her to her rightful place as one of the founders of feminist philosophy.
Methods
Notable Quotes
"{'text': 'I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.', 'source': 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter IV', 'year': 1792}"
"{'text': "Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.", 'source': 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter III', 'year': 1792}"
"{'text': 'Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.', 'source': 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter III', 'year': 1792}"
"{'text': 'The beginning is always today.', 'source': 'attributed, various compilations', 'year': None}"
Major Works
- Thoughts on the Education of Daughters Treatise (1787)
- A Vindication of the Rights of Men Treatise (1790)
- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Treatise (1792)
- Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark Book (1796)
- Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman Book (1798)
Influenced
- Simone de Beauvoir · influence
- John Stuart Mill · influence
Sources
- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (ed. Sylvana Tomaselli, Cambridge Texts)
- Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft by Lyndall Gordon
- The Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft (ed. Claudia Johnson)
- Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life by Janet Todd
External Links
Translations
Discussions
No discussions yet.