A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Though short and often difficult, Mary Wollstonecraft’s (1759-1797) life was also bold. She lived by some of her more radical views, including maintaining at least three known relationships out of wedlock, one of which resulted in a child, and was even a resident of France during the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. With her husband, William Godwin (the so-called Father of Anarchism), Wollstonecraft had a second daughter, Mary Shelley, the famous author of Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus (1818).

From a young age, Wollstonecraft had an interest in writing and philosophy, cultivated by some of her girlhood friendships. However, it was not until she met Joseph Johnson (1738-1809), an influential London bookseller and publisher, that she was able to print her works. Johnson had an affinity for finding and fostering some of the leading intellectual and literary figures of the late-eighteenth century. His shop in St Paul’s Churchyard in London emphasized the publication of works directed at a growing middle class, and so, the books he produced were often more affordable cheap prints. As a member of “Johnson’s Circle,” Wollstonecraft met several other intellectuals, both men and women, interested in challenging and removing traditional injustices of rank, property, class, and even gender. 

To make a living, Wollstonecraft worked as a translator and reviewer for Johnson, in addition to writing her own works; these include her first book: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), her first novel, Mary: A Fiction (1788), as well as her better-known essays: A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and many more. 
 

She penned Rights of Men in 1790 as a response the English member of parliament, Edward Burke’s critiques of the French Revolution. Like many of her contemporaries, Wollstonecraft called for a parliamentary and social reform in Great Britain, and further argued that women were capable participants in this change. She fought against societal structures which assigned to women the role of passive onlookers of political life¹.  Though initially published anonymously, when she was revealed as the author in the second edition, Wollstonecraft was made famous overnight².  A year later, she expanded on her views of women’s rights, writing in only six short weeks, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published by Johnson in 1792³.  

In Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft reasoned that women only appeared inferior to men because they were denied the right to the same education. Previous works on improving learning for girls had focused on providing them with the knowledge necessary to be a compelling companion for a man, rather than to shape thinkers capable of making an independent living. Wollstonecraft challenged this, arguing that women were also fit for a rational and not only domestic education, and even advocated for a national education system with mix-sexed schools⁴.  She was also highly critical of her contemporary women, arguing that they must put aside frivolous dependents of men and seek out a rational education, even when it was denied to them.  

Quote: “I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792

While this book is marked Volume 1, no second volume was ever published; if Wollstonecraft intended to finish another, it was incomplete before her death at the age of only 38 in 1797 due to complications in childbirth. Rights of Woman was published twice in 1792, and several more times up to 1796, after which time, it was not printed again until the 1830s in the US and the 1850s in the UK. Although it is commonly assumed that the work was unfavourably received at the time of its publication, this is a mostly modern misconception based on the belief that Wollstonecraft was as reviled during her lifetime as she became after her death. In 1798, her husband, William Godwin, printed Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; though he likely did so with love and sincerity, revelations of Wollstonecraft’s unorthodox life irreparably damaged her reputation. 
 

Though technically the term “feminist” did not emerge until the mid-19th century, Rights of Woman and its author are today central to discussions of proto-feminist literature⁵.  With the emergence of new challenges to women's rights to a political life (such as the right to vote), Wollstonecraft finally found a new audience, but even when the book was in print and not in fashion, Wollstonecraft's words were never really forgotten⁶.  Over the course of the last century, she has been studied, often revered, sometimes criticized, and undoubtedly written into women's history⁷. 

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A vindication of the rights of woman : with strictures on political and moral subjects
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1759-1797.; Johnson, Joseph, 1738-1809, publisher.
1792
HQ 1596 .W6 1792

Kristen Mercier (Archivist)

Notes

1- For her own view of the Revolution following her residence in France during the Revolution and Reign of Terror between 1793 and 1795, see: An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution; and the Effect It Has produced in Europe. London: Joseph Johnson, 1794.
2- Whig MP Edmund Burke's politically conservative critique of the French Revolution (which had begun in 1789) [Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)], insighted Wollstonecraft and fellow radical, Thomas Pain to write responses. They argued that Britain also needed a parliamentary reform to protect the civil and religious liberties-- the birthright of every man, countering popular opinion at the time. 
3- Rights of Women was also a response to the ideas put forth by French clergyman and politician, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, on girls’ inability to receive a rational education due to an inferior mind. She may have met with the man shortly before she wrote her treatise during his visit to London, and it is supposed that this further encouraged her to write her response. See also her earlier work on education, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), which was influenced by her experience working as an educator of young girls in her early life, including the establishment of a school and as a governess in Ireland.
4- Wollstonecraft’s dream of a mix-sexed school would not come to fruition until 1893 in England, when the first non-Quaker mixed-sex public boarding school, Bedales School, was opened.
5- Charles Fourier introduced the French term, féminisme, when he argued that the institution of marriage in France was oppressive to women.
6- Early suffrage movements were especially inspired by Wollstonecraft’s work. American suffragette, Susan B. Anthony, for example, declared herself “a great admirer of this earliest work for woman’s right to Equality of rights.”
See also: Millicent G. Fawcett, A pioneer of the movement [Mary Wollstonecraft], published 1907 - [call number: JN 981 1907 .S5]. 
7- Later second-wave feminists, meanwhile, held her in high-esteem but were also more critical of her work as feminist literature. They highlighted, for example, that Wollstonecraft does not explicitly state that men and women are equal and challenged her severe critique of her fellow women for not challenging the social and political system as she sought to.