Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797 age 38
She was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft’s life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships, received more attention than her writing.
“A Vindication of the Rights of Woman:
with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects” (1792), written by the 18th-century British proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th century who did not believe women should receive a rational education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, 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.
Quotes
“The beginning is always today.
Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.
I do not wish them [women] to have power over men but over themselves.
Avoid in becoming narcissists in the future which could be taught by hearing from infancy that beauty is woman’s scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
Or the Lion is king only when he hunts for food
The virtue is only possible when it is equal
On 30 August 1797, Wollstonecraft gave birth to her second daughter, Mary. Although the delivery seemed to go well initially, the placenta broke apart during the birth and became infected; childbed fever was a common and often fatal occurrence in the eighteenth century. After several days of agony, Wollstonecraft died of septicemia on 10 September 1797.
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