Mothers of Feminism

Mary Wollstonecraft is considered to be one of the most influential mothers of feminism because of all of the work she did towards the rights of women. In 1792, Wollstonecraft wrote one of her most famous works, the A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She argued that through education of women, would come emancipation.

Mary Wollstonecraft was born on April 27, 1759. Her father had inherited wealth, but squandered his entire fortune, so the Wollstonecraft family moved place to place as her father made attempts to make a living.^[5] When the family was living in Hoxton, a suburb of London, Mary met her closest friend Fanny Blood.

At the age of nineteen, Mary went out to earn her own living as an aid to an elderly woman. In 1783, she helped her sister Eliza, whose mental health was deteriorating, escape a miserable marriage by hiding her from her brutal husband until a legal separation was arranged. The two sisters, along with Fanny Blood, established a school at Newington Green for girls. ^[5] Later, after some financial problems, the school had to be closed. Mary then decided to make her living as a writer promoting the emancipation of women.

Wollstonecraft accepted the idea that a woman belonged at home as many others did at her time, but she did not view the home and the public life as two separate entities. The home is important, as it creates the foundation for a person’s social and public life. Both men and women have responsibilities to both the family and the state.

So, Wollstonecraft argues that a woman has the right to be educated, because as her duty to the state, she is required to raise the future citizens. By doing so, she should be educated, so she will be better equipped to raise her children well.

Wollstonecraft also argues that educating women will strengthen the marriage relationship. A stable marriage, she believes, is a partnership between a husband and a wife. A woman needs to have equal knowledge to maintain the partnership. A stable marriage also provides for the proper education of children. She also mentions that fact that both men and women should be required to be chaste and faithful, and not just women as culture had previously employed.

“Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives;

Self-absorption in activities like beauty and fashion, in Wollstonecraft’s opinion, are detrimental to a woman as it makes her less able to maintain her part in her partnership, and also reduces her effectiveness as an educator to her children. By doing (or not doing so in this case) the woman will be a less dutiful citizen.

But Wollstonecraft, in her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, makes clear her position: There will only be true freedom when both men and women are equally dutiful in the exercise of responsibilities to the family and state.

In March of 1797, Mary found herself in a dilemma; she was pregnant with the child of William Godwin. Mary and William had written openly about their belief against the idea of marriage because at that time, it was a legal institution where the woman lost legal existence and became subsumed legally in their husband's identity. But because she was pregnant, Mary and William were married on March 29,1797. The baby was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin on August 30, 1797. On September 10, Mary died of septicimia, a blood poisoning known as “childbed fever”.