"First Feminist Philosopher"
An interesting quote of her: kind of instruction from the first femenist: "The beginning is always today" :)[]
Marry Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)[]
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society and then proceeds to redefine that position, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men.
While Wollstonecraft does call for equality between the sexes in particular areas of life, such as morality, she does not explicitly state that men and women are equal. What she does claim is that men and women are equal in the eyes of God.
Wollstonecraft addresses her text to the middle-class, which she describes as the "most natural state", and in many ways the Rights of Woman is inflected by a bourgeois view of the world. It encourages modesty and industry in its readers and attacks the uselessness of the aristocracy. But Wollstonecraft is not necessarily a friend to the poor; for example, in her national plan for education, she suggests that, after the age of nine, the poor, except for those who are brilliant, should be separated from the rich and taught in another school.
On 30 August 1797, Wollstonecraft gave birth to her daughter, Mary. Although the delivery seemed to go well initially, after several days of agony, Wollstonecraft died of septicemia on 10 September.
William Godwin
Journalist, Political philosopher, novelist married to the pioneering femenist writer Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797 In January 1798 Godwin published his “ Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”, after her death.
Did you know this?[]
Mary Shelley, author of the classic gothic tale "Frankenstein"; is Marry Wollstonecraft’s daughter!
Her book's subject...!!!
The following year Mary Wollstonecraft published her most important book, Vindication of the Rights of Women'''. In the book Wollstonecraft attacked the educational restrictions that kept women in a state of "ignorance and slavish dependence." She was especially critical of a society that encouraged women to be "docile and attentive to their looks to the exclusion of all else." Wollstonecraft described marriage as "legal prostitution" and added that women "may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent."