Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary (1759-1797) was an author, philosopher, and advocate for women's rights. She is one of the earliest examples of a feminist.

### Biography

Mary grew up in an abusive household in Spitalfields, London. After her mother's death, her and her sisters, Eliza and Everina, left the abusive household. In 1784, her sisters, herself, and her friend, Fanny, established a school in Newington Green. Wollstonecraft idealized her life with Fanny, imagining that they'd rent a room together and support each other emotionally and financially. However, Fanny got engaged and moved to Portugal with her husband. When Fanny got pregnant, Mary left the school and went to help her because her health was declining. After Mary left the school, it closed, and Fanny ultimately died despite Mary's help. This devastated Mary, and it helped inspire her first book: *Mary: A Fiction.* After this, she took a brief job in Ireland as a governess; however, she did not enjoy this job so she went back to London in the hopes of becoming a writer. She became acquainted with people such as Thomas Paine, William Godwin, and Joseph Johnson. It was unprecedented for women to be in the same social spheres as men like Mary had done, and it was even more so unprecedented for women (or anyone) to advocate for women to be equal to men, like Mary had done in her piece, *A Vindication of the Rights of Women.* In December of 1792, she went to France during the Revolution and met Gilbert Imlay whom she began a romantic relationship with. She posed as his wife in France for protection, and ultimately they had a baby girl together, named Fanny Imlay. A year after Fanny's birth, she attempted suicide twice. In March of 1796, she ended the relationship with Gilbert. Later that same year in April, she got back in contact with William Godwin. Shortly after she over came depression, she got romantically involved with William Godwin, whom she ultimately married. She and Godwin got pregnant; however, due to a complication during her delivery, she died ten days after giving birth to Mary Godwin. Mary Godwin survived and grew up to marry Percey Shelley and she wrote *Frankenstein.* After her death, Godwin published Mary's memoirs. This was a shock to people, as most did not have the same progressive mindset as Wollstonecraft.

### Works

* *A Vindication of the Rights of Women* (1791)
* *A Vindication of the Rights of Men* (1790)
* *Thoughts on the Education of Daughters* (1786)
* *Mary: A Fiction* (1788)
* *The Female Readers* (1789)
* *Maria: or, the Wrongs of Women* (1798)

### *A Vindication of the Rights of Women*

This is Wollstonecraft's most notable work. It is one of the earliest examples of feminist philosophy. In it, she advocates for the education of girls, because women educate their children. Furthermore, she advocates for women to be "companions" to their husband, rather than a subordinate. She argued in it that women had the same fundamental rights as men. While some believe this is a feminist work, it is still a controversial topic. Some critics claim that because she never explicitly states that men and women are equal, it is not feminist. Instead, she states "men and women are equal in the eye's of God," meaning that they are held to the same moral law. Regardless of how critics feel, she was still ahead of her time but hundreds of years by advocating for girl's education and for wives to be companions.

### *Maria: or, the Wrongs of Women*

This writing was published after Mary passed away by her husband, William Godwin. It is an unfinished novel intended to be a sequel to *A Vindication of the Rights of Women*. It is a philosophical and gothic novel about a woman who is put in an asylum by her husband. It exposes how Wollstonecraft believed that marriage was patriarchal and how the legal system perpetuated it. The novel not only covered woman's sexuality, but also cross-class identification between women. It was an unpopular novel when it was published because it was so radical, and many did not discuss how marriage is a patriarchy, so they did not want to read about it. This is considered to be Wollstonecraft's most radical feminist writing.

### Mary's Influence

Mary is widely regarded as one of the first feminists. In her time, and even many years after her death, she was not taken seriously because she was a woman and because her belief that women should be equal to men was not shared by many. However, leading into the 20th century, many historians have deemed her to be the "first English feminist." Now, she is seen as more than just the "scandalous literary figure"; she is seen as the moral and political thinker that argued that men and women should be equal in the public and private sphere. She was ahead of her time by two hundred years.

### Sources

* Mary Wollstonecraft. (2017, September 26). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary\_Wollstonecraft
* Mary Wollstonecraft biography. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.biographyonline.net/writers/mary-wollstonecraft.html
* Mary Wollstonecraft. (2017, March 01). Retrieved from https://www.biography.com/people/mary-wollstonecraft-9535967#!
* Powell, J. (1996, April 01). Mary Wollstonecraft--Equal Rights for Women. Retrieved from https://fee.org/articles/mary-wollstonecraft-equal-rights-for-women/
* Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). Mary Wollstonecraft Major Works. Retrieved from https://www.shmoop.com/mary-wollstonecraft/major-works.html
* Tomaselli, S. (2008, April 16). Mary Wollstonecraft. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wollstonecraft/