a vindication of the rights of woman by mary wollstonecraft

She believed that women were physically inferior to men, but in terms of intellect they were equal and that they so desperately needed a noble, edifying, pursuit in which to show this. She argued that women, in their current state, had no means of proving their worth. Instead she wished to display her rational intellect, an intellect free of flights of fancy and one that had the ability to access the situation in all its reality. She refused to appeal to the sensibilities and imaginations of her readers.

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” Wollstonecraft writes with no embellishment or artistry yet, her words are commanding and exceedingly persuasive because what she does have is cold, hard, logic. Wollstonecraft is not passionate she does not offer any inspiring words or flowery language. Today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and work as important influences. However, with the emergence of the feminist movement at the turn of the twentieth century, Wollstonecraft's advocacy of women's equality and critiques of conventional femininity became increasingly important. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.Īfter Wollstonecraft's death, Godwin published a Memoir (1798) of her life, revealing her unorthodox lifestyle, which inadvertently destroyed her reputation for a century. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education.

Wollstonecraft died at the age of thirty-eight due to complications from childbirth, leaving behind several unfinished manuscripts.ĭuring her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. After two ill-fated affairs, with Henry Fuseli and Gilbert Imlay, Wollstonecraft married the philosopher William Godwin, one of the forefathers of the anarchist movement they had one daughter, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Among the general public and specifically among feminists, Wollstonecraft's life has received much more attention than her writing because of her unconventional, and often tumultuous, personal relationships. Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth century British writer, philosopher, and feminist.

A vindication of the rights of woman by mary wollstonecraft