Before Her Time: Mary Wollstonecraft
A few days ago I was driving along, happily minding my own business and having a normal conversation with my husband. I suddenly let out a small scream of joy and pointed frantically at the car next to me.
"Look! Look at that!" I commanded my ever-patient husband, who had no idea what he was supposed to look at.
I'd seen a bumper sticker. All that hoopla over a bumper sticker. It wasn't a particularly witty bumper sticker. It didn't involve alliteration or a pun. It didn't even have a picture. Plain black Times New Roman font declared that "Women who do as expected don't change the world."
The thought resonated with me.
It was not long ago that women were expected to marry young, produce children, keep the house clean and cook all the meals. And, even more maddening, they were expected to enjoy it. There's nothing wrong with doing any of those things. I love to cook and am having a baby in just a few short months, but I'm so thankful that I have other options if I choose to pursue them. Of course, there are still societies in the year 2005 world that expect absolute domestic obedience from women. I wish I could change that, but I can't. Instead, I can just work hard to appreciate the life I'm privileged enough to leave in the United States.
Instead of interviewing a woman who is out enjoying all the advantages equal rights have to offer, we've decided to throw the spotlight on a woman from the past whose radical ideas were the first stepping stone on the long path to women's equality.
Mary Wollstonecraft may be one of the most important women in the our fight for equal rights. In 1792, well ahead of her time, she wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women, commonly thought to be the very first treatise on women's rights.
Wollstonecraft had good reason to be a strong supporter of women's rights. Her own mother was worn down by an abusive husband who treated her as a slave. Her sister was also in an abusive marriage, which added even more fuel to Wollstonecraft's feminist fire. Instead of accepting this grotesque form of marriage as a normal practice and her future lot in life, Wollstonecraft became angry and struck out from her family.
Instead of marrying young, she became a companion to a widow and later became a writer of radical texts for a liberal publisher in Britian. She also started a school for girls where the students were taught more than grace and manners. She was a firm believer that education molded intelligent women who were much more than "domestic adornments." I like that concept. I certainly have no desire to be an adornment and am glad I've had the full advantage of an education that allows me to aspire to be anything I want to be.
Though Wollstonecraft socialized with many leading liberals of her days, her A Vindication of the Rights of Women was seen as too radical for even her closest male friends and supporters. She had the audacity to believe that women should have the right to vote, something no one could comprehend as a reasonable demand. She also called marriage "legalized prostitution" and equated it to slavery, a notion that made many of her male peers very uncomfortable.
Eventually her radical views forced her to flee to Paris with her lover since King George III declared that ideas such as hers were seditious. Despite her aversion to marriage, she registered as the common law wife of Gilbert Imlay, an American businessman. This afforded her some protection, espescially after she had her first child with Imlay.
Unfortunately, Imlay seemed to take his duty as husband lightly and particpated in at least one affair that sent Wollstonecraft into a suicidal despair. She eventually recovered and married William Goodwin after becoming pregnant with his child. Both Goodwin and Wollstonecraft were opposed to the notion of marriage, but they both felt marriage was necessary if she was to have their child.
Wollstonecraft died of complications from the birth of that child (who later grew up and wrote Frankenstein) at the young age of 38. With her early death, the world lost a true fighter and idealist who was centuries ahead of her time. Though she published the foundation of feminism in 1782 it wasn't until 101 years later, in 1893 that New Zealand became the first modern country to allow women to vote. Leaders of New Zealand's suffrage movement directly cited Wollstonecraft's writings as the basis of their philosphy.
Modern women owe a great debt of gratitude to Mary Wollstonecraft for daring to refuse to live up to the expectations of her society. It may have taken a full century for her words to have any effect, but she clearly changed the world. I would love to take my time machine back to her time and tell her about the contribution she's made to the future. She was such an idealist that I think she would even believe me and not think I had just escaped from Bedlam.
Sources:
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Suffragists/
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/wollstonecraft.html
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/wollstonecraft.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wwollstonecraft.htm