Mary Wollstonecraft - The most respectful women are the most oppressed

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, English female writer and philosopher, was the second of seven children in a family wealth that became impoverished and bankrupt over time. To support herself and help her mother and sisters survive her alcoholic and violent father, she worked as a governess in the homes of wealthy families, from where she took most of her observations about the poor education of women at the time.

Her reflections on female status were part of an attempt to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of human relationships within a civilization increasingly governed by greed and consumption.

Precursor of feminism

More than a century before Simone de Beauvoir, Wollstonecraft already elaborated the first thoughts on the structural oppression of women and its roots. "Unfortunate is the situation of females, educated according to fashion, but left without any fortune". Thoughts on the education of daughters (1787) – one of the first, if not the first writing in which a woman addressed the female situation in Europe.

Respectful women are the most oppressed

Women depend financially on men. They are raised solely to serve them and also learn to use seduction to secure male support. Therefore, respectful women who do not exploit their seduction fail to gain men's support and lack formal education to earn their livelihood. The most respectful, therefore, are the most oppressed.

Wollstonecraft argued that women needed the freedom to earn their own money to achieve autonomy from men. This would only be possible through education.

Mainly bothered by the lack of career options for women in the field, Wollstonecraft moved to London, where she taught herself to speak German and French, starting to work as a translator and reviewer in the journal Analytical Review that her editor, Joseph Johnson, together with Thomas Christie, started in May 1788.

She began attending dinners at her new boss's house, where she met enlighteners like politician Thomas Paine, philosopher William Godwin and artist Henry Fuseli. Mary debated with them, as equals, on politics and literature, always focusing on the French Revolution, the main event of the time. Integrated into the urban and politicized environment of London,

Wollstonecraft became a staunch defender of equality, liberty and fraternity, concepts that emanated from post-revolutionary France. Since then, she has advocated that women should have the same right to education as men and not study just to become “ideal wives.” She applied ardent feminism to her calls for freedom, reason, and education regardless of gender. According to her point of view, education was vital for women.

Educational reforms

Wollstonecraft proposed reforms such as combining private and public education and adopting a more democratic and participatory approach in schools. Her proposals went unnoticed during her lifetime, and for a time after her death, she was more known for her unconventional lifestyle than for her ideas.

Later, women like Emily Davies, who founded Girton College for women at the University of Cambridge in 1869, were influenced by her ideas. However, change was slow to come. It took 150 years after the publication of A Vindication for the University of Cambridge to grant full academic degrees to women.

An exceptionally talented self-taught

Wollstonecraft's own haphazard education was not, however, unusual for one of her sex and station, nor was it particularly deficient. Her published writings show that she acquired a true command of the Bible and a good knowledge of the works of several of the most famous ancient philosophers, partly explained by her personal acquaintance with Thomas Taylor, famous for his translations of Plato. She also drew on a variety of early modern sources, such as the works of Shakespeare and Milton.

Translation and proofreading

To understand the extent to which Wollstonecraft compensated for a lack of formal education, it is essential to fully appreciate that her talents extended to translation and proofreading, and that these pursuits, regardless of her own intellectual curiosity, made her work familiar. contact with many authors, including Leibniz and Kant. She translated into English the following works:

De l'importance des opinions religieuses (the Importance of Religious Opinions, by Jacques Necker - 1788). From French.

Elemente der moral, für den gebrauch von kindern (Elements of morality, for the use of children, by Rev. CG Salzmann - 1790). From the German;

Jonge Kleinzoon van Madame de Cambon (The young grandson of Madame de Cambon, from Madame de Cambon - 1790). From Dutch.

In each case, the texts she produced were almost her own, not just because she agreed with the original authors, but because she almost rewrote them.

It is unlikely that the Reverend Salzmann resented her for this, since he would translate two of Mary's books into German: A Vindication of the rights of woman (Eine Verteidigung der Rechte der Frau) and William Godwin's memoirs of the author of a vindication of the rights of woman (William Godwins memoiren des autores einer verteidigung der rechte der frau - 1798).

Marriage for Wollstonecraft

In Wollstonecraft's view, marriage should be based on friendship rather than physical attraction. Moreover, husbands and wives should not be overly intimate and should maintain a certain degree of reserve with each other. That said, she acknowledged that sex should be based on genuine mutual physical desire. According to her, women should control their passions, choose better men, and live in a decent and proper marriage. However, when she married, she did the opposite of what she preached.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a staunch defender of political freedom, recognized in his work Émile that women should only be educated to make them better wives, capable of helping men. Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication to show how wrong Rousseau was about women. The world would only revitalize if women were happy, like men. Still, they were bound by a series of expectations because of their male dependency.

Her many criticisms reveal the extent to which she, like many other eighteenth-century moralists, feared the moral consequences of reading novels. Mary believed that even those of superior quality encouraged vanity and selfishness. She admitted, however, that reading these works would be better than not reading at all.

In addition to novels, Wollstonecraft revised poetry, travelogues, educational works, sermons, biographies, natural histories, and essays and treatises on subjects such as Shakespeare, happiness, theology, music, architecture, and the horror of solitary confinement; authors whose works she commented included Madame de Staël, Emanuel Swedenborg, Lord Kames, Rousseau and William Smellie.

The problem of the moral double standard

Mary contested the moral double standard, that is, the idea that for women it is frowned upon to relate to several men, while the opposite is not always true, because for men there is a certain normality. It is like, today, the question popularly asked Why is a man who goes to the carnival and is with all the women a stud and a woman who goes to the carnival and is with all the men is a tramp?

She believed that men and women should be judged by the same moral standard because they are not different socially, not in terms of preferences, except for cultural and historical reasons. Exactly as the feminist movement preaches today. According to this conception, if men and women were educated to be equal, they would be equal.

If they behave differently, it is all a result of social construction. At this point, the feminist movement begins to deny biological, psychological, hormonal influence, as everything is a cultural construction and therefore must be overthrown.

Criticism of Edmund Burke

It is important to remember that Mary Wollstonecraft was responding to a rapidly changing political situation and continued to critically engage with public opinion, key political and intellectual figures of her time, and, most notably, her own views in light of her experiences in Northern Europe, France, and Britain. Her criticism of Edmund Burke, the English political system, and even the aristocracy became more subdued when she realized that the continuous expansion of trade and the growth of the luxury economy led to even greater inequalities than the world it was replacing.

Confrontation with Edward Burke

Until the end of 1789, her articles were mainly of a moral and aesthetic nature. However, in December 1789, she revised a speech by her old friend, Richard Price, entitled A discourse on the love of our country, delivered on November 4, 1789, at the Meeting House of Ancient Judaism, to the Commemorative society of the revolution of Great Britain.

This speech in part led Edward Burke to compose his famous Reflections on the revolution in France , and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relating to that event (1790). Reading Burke's criticisms of the revolution, enraged and encouraged by Johnson, her publisher, she wrote A vindication of the rights of men, attacking the aristocracy and defending republicanism. Published anonymously in late November, the second edition in mid-December, under Wollstonecraft's name, marked a turning point in her career and established her as a political writer.

Freedom through education

Wollstonecraft argued that the educational system of her time deliberately trained women to be frivolous and incapable. She postulated that an educational system that allowed girls the same advantages as boys would result in women who would be not only exceptional wives and mothers but capable workers in many professions.

Rational women and citizenship

Mary Wollstonecraft wanted women to aspire to full citizenship, to be worthy of it, and this required the development of reason. Rational women would recognize their true duties. They would renounce the world of mere appearances, the world of insatiable needs on which 18th-century society was based, as Adam Smith had explained more clearly than anyone else, and which, in Wollstonecraft's view, France epitomized.

The publication of her first book, Thoughts on the education of daughters helped alleviate her considerable financial difficulties. Although it may seem somewhat superficial, the book provided the basis for many of the topics to which she would return in her most famous works of the 1790s.

When Wollstonecraft began writing A vindication of the rights of woman (1792), the moral rejuvenation of society and the happiness of individual women were intertwined. Women were ill-prepared for their duties as social beings and trapped in a web of false expectations that would inevitably make miserable.

She wanted women to be seen as rational, independent beings whose sense of worth came, not from their appearance, but from their inner sense of self-control and knowledge. Women had to be educated; their minds and bodies had to be trained. This would make them good companions, wives, mothers and citizens. Above all, it would make them fully human, that is, beings governed by reason and characterized by self-control.

This is how, for example, the demand for education has the exclusive objective of allowing the free development of women as a rational being, strengthening virtue through the exercise of reason and making them fully independent.

In addition to criticisms of existing pedagogical practices and theories, the work contains many social and political proposals ranging from a detailed outline of necessary changes in the school curriculum to the suggestion that women be given not only civil and political rights, but have their own representatives elected.

Marriage as a property relationship

In A Vindication, Mary Wollstonecraft argued that, in most cases, marriage was nothing more than a property relationship. The education that women received did not ensure they met society’s expectations and almost certainly condemned them to an unhappy life.

She believed that women should learn skills to support themselves and their children in widowhood, ensuring they would never have to remarry out of financial necessity. The book also offers advice on how to sustain lasting marriages.

How female education should be

Mary argued that if women are futile and spend all day talking about hair and dress, it is because they have not received an education equal to that of men. Men and women are only different because they receive a different education. To get around this problem, she preached that education should be public, compulsory and mixed to level the culture between the sexes. The ideal way to equalize the training of men and women is to place the education of children under the care of the State.

For her, the men and women of her time were incapable of raising their own children, but she seemed to forget that the State is made up of these same men. However, what was her basis for claiming that parents who worked for the State were more capable than parents who committed themselves to the education of their own children?

The idolatry of reason, characteristic of that period, helps to understand this thought. She imagined that both knowledge and virtue were enhanced by the use of rationalism, which put the family's religious devotion into disrepute in the face of what Enlightnment thinkers.

Occupations women could take

On With regard to those who argued that women were intellectually inferior to men, she insisted that this misconception was due to women's lack of education. She defended that there were a series of occupations that women could assume if they had access to education and opportunities.

“How many women have wasted their lives, victims of grief, and who could have been doctors, farm managers, store managers, able to support themselves by their own ability?”

These achievements would also be good for men because marriages would be based on mutual affection and respect. She encourages women to broaden their interests to encompass the politics and concerns of all humanity.

Freedom and reason

Mary Wollstonecraft saw freedom as inseparable from reason. For her, true freedom was not merely the absence of restrictions but the ability to act rationally and autonomously. She argued that women, like men, should develop their reason through education, as only then could they become full and independent citizens. Without access to knowledge, women would remain trapped in roles imposed by society. Wollstonecraft believed that female emancipation required rejecting mere appearances and superficial desires, allowing women to gain respect, equality, and active participation in public life.

Major books

Among Wollstonecraft's last notable works are letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796), a travelogue with a sociological and philosophical bent.

A vindication of the rights of woman (1792) - seen as the first major feminist treatise, was written at a time of intellectual and political effervescence. The Enlightenment had placed the rights of men at the center of political debate, culminating in France with the French Revolution in the same year Wollstonecraft wrote this work.

However, little was said about the position of women in society. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a staunch defender of political freedom, recognized in his work Émile that women should only be educated to make them better wives, capable of helping men. Wollstonecraft argued that the educational system of her time deliberately trained women to be frivolous and incapable. She postulated that an educational system that allowed girls the same advantages as boys would result in women who would be not only exceptional wives and mothers but capable workers in many professions.

Other feminists made similar calls to improve education for women, but Wollstonecraft's work was unique in suggesting that improving the status of women would be accomplished through political changes such as the radical reform of educational systems in England. Such a change, she concluded, would benefit all of society.

Thoughts on the education of daughters ( 1787) - reflections on female conduct in the most important tasks of life. It is a replica of a book originally published before 1787. It has been restored, page by page, to match the original as closely as possible.

An historical and moral view of the French Revolution (1794) - a retrospective of the initial stages of the revolution, with an original approach, from the point of view of ordinary people, who had endorsed the political events in the daily.

The wrongs of woman, or Mary (1798) - posthumously published unfinished work that is a novelistic sequel to A vindication of the rights of woman.

Little recognition among intellectuals

Although she was greatly encouraged by her editor, Joseph Johnson, she received little support from other intellectuals in her lifetime. Even Godwin disliked her on their first meeting. Relatively few of the leading female writers gave Wollstonecraft their wholehearted support in the eighteenth century.

Some scoffed at her, but rarely were her ideas genuinely evaluated in the way they have been since the second half of the twentieth century. The poet Anna Barbauld (1743-1825) was one of the few members of the radical intelligentsia of the day whose opposition to Wollstonecraft was the product of an actual engagement with her views on women.

In the late 1790s and through most of the 19th century, Wollstonecraft was ridiculed by many, if only because of what was considered a scandalous personal life. There were, of course, important exceptions, especially in America. But the praise she received on both sides of the Atlantic came from a probably limited knowledge of her ideas or her intellectual personality.

Revision of her theories

The combination of her experience of unrequited love for an American, Captain Gilbert Imlay, the precepts of her own emotions, and the tribulations of a voyage to northern Europe led her to reconsider her view of the power of reason. Indeed, she too should revise her opinion of France, culture and polite customs, even Catholicism which she abhorred, an aversion which her sojourn in Portugal did much to strengthen.

She grew a little closer to Burke, as she came to think that the tyranny of commercial wealth can be worse than rank and privilege. In France, she had already begun to write less critically about the English system of government.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Published in 1792, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft is a landmark feminist work. The author argues that female education is essential for equality, asserting that women are not naturally inferior to men but are limited by a lack of instruction. She criticizes female submission and marriages based on financial dependence, proposing that true freedom requires the use of reason. The book challenges societal norms and anticipates debates on rights and citizenship. A visionary, Wollstonecraft paved the way for modern feminist thought.

Mary Wollstonecraft and feminism today

There is a critique by Mary Wollstonecraft of women and women's movements that is incompatible with the feminist movement of today. She criticized women who behaved like men, whom she called masculinized women. It also defended motherhood and, in some points, modesty and chastity. She believed that all humanity's problems and men's moral problems could be solved with reason, science and education.

As the first feminist, living in the 1700s, Wollstonecraft understood that women were socially privileged. For example, they did not have to work as much as men and yet they received the advantages of having something to eat and a place to live.

Influences

Freethinkers George Eliot, Barbara Bodichon and Virginia Woolf were among later feminists who defended Wollstonecraft against accusations of social and sexual impropriety, which endured even 100 years later. Wollstonecraft remains an inspirational figure in the history of free thought and feminism, representing a devotion to the values of freedom, reason, and equality that remain at the core of humanism today.

Maternity, marriage, and suicide attempts

In December 1792, she travelled to France where she met Gilbert Imlay, an American merchant. As British subjects were increasingly at risk under the Terror, Wollstonecraft passed as Imlay’s wife to benefit from the security enjoyed at the time by American citizens. They never married. Imlay was probably the source of Wollstonecraft’s greatest unhappiness, first through his lack of ardor for her, then because of his infidelity, and finally because of his complete rejection of her. Most of all, her love of Imlay brought Wollstonecraft to the realization that the passions are not so easily brought to heel by reason.

Wollstonecraft had a girl by Imlay. She was born at Le Havre in May 1794 and named Fanny, after Wollstonecraft’s friend, Fanny Blood. A year after Fanny’s birth, Wollstonecraft twice attempted suicide, first in May, then in October 1795. She broke with Imlay finally in March 1796.

In April of the same year, she renewed her acquaintance with William Godwin and they became lovers that summer. They were married at St Pancras church in March 1797. The marriage was happy but brief; Mary died 11 days after the birth of their second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley or Mary Shelley, who became a novelist best known for authoring the novel Frankenstein.

Wollstonecraft died at age 38 of a postpartum infection, leaving behind nearly twenty books, including novels and analyzes of politics, history, and women's rights. Currently, feminist historians and scholars of the French Revolution have reviewed Mary Wollstonecraft, increasingly reaffirming her title as founder of feminism in Europe ֎