Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was originally published in 1792. Nearly 180 years later when Source Book Press republished it, women were still clamoring for those rights. Title IX of the Education Amendments wasn't even a thing until 1972. Think about that for just one second. In 1792 Wollstonecraft was demanding justice for her half of the human race as loudly as she could. Hers was a plea for all womenkind and not a singular selfish act of only thinking of herself. She argued that reason, virtue, and knowledge were the keys to a successful life regardless of your sex. However, the notion that physical strength promotes power indicates a man's authority over a weaker woman exists even today. To put it crudely, inequality among the sexes is still a thing. To be sentimental is to be silly.
Wollstonecraft was not afraid to challenge her readers, asking us what does it mean to be respectable? To have virtue? To be a woman of quality? Are these traits euphemisms for weakness? She addresses the assumption that women are designed to feel before applying reason. Maybe that is why men are trained to never argue with a woman in public (she might become irrational) or allow a woman to exert physical strength (unseemly). Most of Wollstonecraft's arguments are disguised as philosophical and moral conversations with Rousseau.… (more)

One of those books I was mildly embarrassed not to have read, so here I am finally getting around to it. Reading A Vindication of the Rights of Woman at a remove of more than two centuries from when it was first published, it was striking to me how much Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas seemed both very relevant (nepo babies! abolish the British monarchy! educate kids equally and let women have careers!) and very dated (classism, racism, and xenophobia, oh my! the Enlightenment Cult of Reason everywhere!) all at once.

For all that she has blinkers on when it comes to issues of class and race, Wollstonecraft is surprisingly acute at making the connection between broader issues of hierarchy and oppression and discrimination against women. Her flaying of Rousseau was also super satisfying ("'Educate women like men,' says Rousseau, 'and the more they resemble our sex the less power will they have over us.' This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves."), and I appreciated throughout Wollstonecraft's willingness to call bullshit, even if I didn't always agree with the points she was making.

Wollstonecraft probably has made all of her main points by halfway through A Vindication, and the internal structure of the book could have used some refining to make it less repetitive, but it still retains enough of its power that you can see why it was such a landmark manifesto.… (more)

Wollstonecraft's main thesis, which was quite radical for the time, was that women should be educated towards ends other than catching a husband. Quite a good idea, I think. She argued that for women to be good wives and mothers they needed to have their reason trained and their body healthy; apparently simpering delicate women are not terribly useful, as much as the men may have liked them. This book was very difficult to read; sometimes Wollstonecraft seems to wander away from her point, and I am not sure that she always makes it back. However, it is an interesting book if you are interested in the history of feminism. It is also interesting if you are interested in Victorian literature since the period about which Wollstonecraft is writing is round about then.… (more)