Mary Wollstonecraft: The First Feminism

The eighteenth-century British society was divided along social classes and gender roles. Males were considered to be better in exercising leadership,while women were believed to be better at nurturing and at managing domestic matters. During this period women were deprived from exercising their rights and had limited roles in society. Women were not allowed to vote, own property and most important were denied the right to receive an equal education as men did during this time. Women were deprived from the ability to acquire knowledge and exercise their reason. Marriage was the primary goal in their lives. Not everyone agreed how society had been underestimating the capabilities of women. Wollstonecraft, did not agree on how women were perceived and wanted to make change. she wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women,where she stated the reasons why women have been perceived as objects. She felt parents and schools have contributed the neglection of education for women. As result, women were portrayed as weak. Mary Wollstonecraft had very unique opinions about the role that education played in the lives of women and argued powerfully how disadvantaged they were in society.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the eighteenth century feminist philosopher, Mary Wollstonecraft. Specifically, it explores her vision and critique of the relationship between the genders by explaining her position and her prescription to remedy the deficiencies she identifies with regards to gender inequality. Additionally, this evaluation asserts that at present, we have partially achieved the realization of Wollstonecraft’s vision of women in society, which dates back two centuries. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of the continued of study of Wollstonecraft’s philosophical ideas in society today.

Today, when anyone mentions the United Kingdom, one of the first aspects thought of about the culture is Queen Elizabeth II. She has been an important figure of the nation for decades, and the idea of there not being a woman as the crown regent seems unfathomable. However, the emergence of women being taken seriously in roles of power is a relatively new accepted concept and until recently women in power seemed to be unrealistic and baffling. In the beginnings of the development of London, A People’s History of London by Lindsey German and John Rees suggests that women were seen as inferior beings with little importance to society who should be willing to marry at a man’s whim. Yet, without women, it seems likely that many of the advances

Throughout history, women have been oppressed and seen as subservient to men. Gender differences denied women the right to education, among many factors that men had. Women lived their lives to be wives and mothers while men went to school, held careers, interests passions and individual lives outside of the homes women so rarely left. Mary Wollstonecraft expressed her abhorrence for this injustice in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Later in the same year of 1792, Anna Barbauld responded by attacking Wollstonecraft with her “The Rights of Woman.” Both women present a clear, though opposing argument allowing the reader further insight of the oppression plaguing women in the late eighteenth century.

Elusive Women Rights As widely cited the French Revolution served as the greatest war of liberation of the human race and decried as bloodthirsty lesson on the working of mob mentality. Women despite their extensive participation in the relatively legitimate and orderly legislative and political process, which characterized the first phase of the Revolution, as well as in the violence of the Terror were no better off in 1804 after the formulation of the Napoleonic Code. The question asked is plain. How did women after achieving hard-earned triumph, slip back to the controlling rule of men? The answer lies in the contemporary notions about women, and the image of the ideal revolutionary mother and wife propounded by philosophers, political leaders, and even women of the time.

Chimamanda Ngozi describes a feminist as “A person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.”During her Ted Talk from April 12th, 2013, She talks about how since she knew she was female she would have to try and prove her worth in school. She states that “I was worried that if I looked too feminine I would not be taken seriously. I really wanted to wear my shiny lip gloss and my girly skirt, but I decided not to. I wore a very serious, very manly, and very ugly suit.The sad truth of the matter is that when it comes to appearance we start off with men as the standard, as the norm. Many of us think that the less feminine a woman appears, the more likely she is to be taken seriously.” Her words ring true especially

A change in feminism is shown between Wollstonecraft’s essay and Young’s essay. As women first demanded rights, they were coming out of complete dependence on men. Wollstonecraft and other activists fought for the basic right of education for women. As women gained liberty, they began to oppress themselves in the Third Wave of feminism. Wollstonecraft focused on the basic rights of women in her paper, saying “They must be permitted to turn to the fountain of light, and not forced to shape their course by the twinkling of a mere satellite” (Wollstonecraft 5). Here Wollstonecraft is saying that women need to be given the opportunity to get a good education, not just be taught by what their husbands tell them, so they could be their better selves.

It is a declaration for the equal rights of man and women. The political significance of Mary Wollstonecraft cannot be overstated—her work is regarded as one of the first greatest feminist treatises in history and is also seen as the first step towards liberal feminism. She fought equality for women in the political sphere, but she also addressed the need for equality in the social, private realm. She emphasized the need for reform in women’s status, education, and maternal duties. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft argues that men and women are born with the same ability to reason. Therefore, men and woman should equally be able to exercise reason and attain knowledge. And conclusively, educated women would ultimately improve society; they would become better wives and mothers (72, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman). She argues that the current education system (i.e. Rousseau’s ideas of women education) restricts women and subjects them into passivity. Women are not perceivably “smart” as men because they have not been given the opportunity to be; women receive a “disorderly kind of education” (46, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman). Women are kept in passivity, forced to superficiality and shallowness. She derides these traits that are seen as inherent to a woman’s nature and asks the powerful question: how are women supposed to contribute to society if they have been reduced to their appearance and bodily function? For a thriving, modern and true civilization to succeed, each and every individual must be encouraged to seek moral and intellectual development, including

To force me to give my fortune, I was imprisoned-yes: in a private madhouse…” (Maria 131-32). These lines from Mary Wollstonecraft’s (1759-1797) unfinished novella Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman substantiates the private operation of the madhouse where the protagonist Maria is confined. The importance of private ownership is that this places the madhouse outside the discourse of law. It is illegitimate yet it is legitimized as it is a symbol of male-dominated state oppression. Parallel to this Bastille becomes the direct symbol of the same repression which is used by Wollstonecraft to depict the predicament of dissenting revolutionary women in the late Eighteenth- century England. The language which she is using is evidently from the French Revolution as we know the symbolic importance of the dreaded tower of Bastille where political ‘criminals’ were imprisoned. So, Wollstonecraft’s objective is to politicize the genre of novel as the other Jacobin women writers- novel, for them, is a vehicle of political propaganda.

In Mary Wollstonecraft's “A Vindication of the Rights of Women”, Wollstonecraft constantly compares men and women. Her comparison ranges from their physical nature to their intelligence, and even down to the education that each sex received.