Mary Wollstonecraft: biography of the first feminist

When feminism was not yet such an important trend, when women were relegated to the domestic, Frankenstein’s grandmother began to lead the way. We talk about Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley, a truly atypical woman for the time in which she lived. Philosopher and writer, she lived a lifetime among letters.

The figure of Mary, unfortunately, was involved in controversy, she was harshly criticized and questioned by her contemporaries.. He died shortly after giving birth to his daughter, Mary Shelley, from an infection resulting from childbirth.

After her death, her husband, also a writer and philosopher, William Godwin tried to pay tribute to him by publishing his memoirs. But, despite Godwin’s good will, Wollstonecraft would only be remembered for her polemics and, consequently, would be a figure discarded by the intellectuals of the time.

Her story and her work were silenced, kept secret so that no one, like Mary, would dare to think, to vindicate women’s rights. It would not be until some time later when the new wave of feminism at the beginning of the 20th century was responsible for dusting off her texts and returning the light to them.

Virginia Woolf and other feminists of the time were responsible for resurrecting Mary Wollstonecraft, a misunderstood woman and, without a doubt, ahead of her time.

Mary Wollstonecraft: childhood and youth

On April 27, 1759, Mary Wollstonecraft was born in Spitalfields (London, United Kingdom). He was born into a family with a stable financial position, but his father ended up squandering all the family savings. His father also used to drink too much and beat his wife. Wollstonecraft became deeply attached to her sisters and became an important pillar for them.

Wollstonecraft always defended women’s independence and tried to challenge conventions. Thus, he advised his sister Eliza to abandon her family, but the world was not prepared for such a thing and Eliza’s fate was quite precarious.

Mary had two important friendships in her youth that would greatly influence her professional future: Jane Arden and Fanny Blood. Arden brought her closer to the world of philosophy through her father’s influence. Blood died after giving birth and this event marked Mary greatly.

After the death of her friend, Wollstonecraft makes a fundamental decision: to become a writer. Her first texts are a small reflection on the problems of women in the educational and labor system.. When she wanted to look for a job, she realized that her possibilities were reduced to two: being a governess or a caregiver. Furthermore, the education that women received was very different from that of men and, as a consequence, was tremendously limited.

Later, she began working as a governess, proving to be quite atypical with the education she provided to children. As a result of this experience she writes Reflections on the education of daughters (1787) and Original stories from real life (1778), his only work of children’s literature. His first work followed a fairly common style at the time, but it is true that advanced some of the reflections on single women, especially their economic limitations.

Later, She obtained employment at the publishing house run by Joseph Johnson, worked as a translator and published Vindication of the rights of man (1790). This text was actually a response to Burke’s post Reflections on the French Revolution (1790). Wollstonecraft greatly attacked hereditary rights and the aristocracy, defending the republic. But this controversial text was only the first stone for what would come later…

The first feminism

Mary Wollstonecraft landed in Paris in 1792, in a Paris plunged into chaos and in which Louis XVI was going to be guillotined. At the moment, Wollstonecraft begins to destabilize: on the one hand, she writes Vindication of women’s rights (1972); and, on the other hand, she falls madly in love with Gilbert Imlay, with whom she has a daughter. Her relationship with Imlay was a failure and Wollstonecraft wrote him desperate letters as a result of the depression in which she found herself plunged.

It was the 18th century, These were times of revolution and Wollstonecraft was alone with a daughter.. Upon his return to the United Kingdom, he attempted suicide. Paradoxically, this vindictive woman who so defended her rights and her independence was in a deep depressive state as a result of her sentimental failure. Talking about feminism in Wollstonecraft is somewhat contradictory, since the term was consolidated later.

However, when we read Vindication of women’s rightswe realize that the first steps of this fight are found there. What exactly was Mary criticizing? Mary saw a problem in the romance novel that was associated with women, since they somehow justified this dependence on men and prevented women from thinking. She advocated for a rational education, for educating girls early in thinking and being able to have the same opportunities as men.

A woman’s abilities were not a cause of her nature, but rather resided in the system itself. and, more specifically, in the education received. Mary thus slapped almost all the thinkers of her time. But Wollstonecraft went beyond the text, taking her break with convention almost to the extreme.

He even proposed to the artist and writer Henry Fuseli that he open his relationship with his wife and, thus, the three of them could live together. Of course, at a time when polyamory was much more than a taboo, the consequences of this proposition were very harsh.

Last stage

It was extremely difficult for Mary Wollstonecraft to overcome her disappointment in love, for this reason, she wrote him countless letters and tried to commit suicide for the second time in a row.

In 1796, he published a work in which he records one of his trips: Letters written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. She set out on this journey with the intention of recovering Imlay, but discovered that all was lost. In this work, she reflects on various social issues and even on her own identity and the relationship of the “I” with the world. She again claims the freedom and education of women and, finally, she accepts that her story with Imlay is over.

In London, He met William Godwin, a philosopher and writer who was a precursor of anarchist thought. They both got married and they established a rule to respect their independence: live in separate but contiguous houses.

From this moment on, Wollstonecraft once again immersed herself in her work as a writer. Unfortunately, her happiness faded quickly and she Mary passed away shortly after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Shelley, at the age of 38. Her daughters were left in the care of Godwin, who subsequently remarried.

Godwin published in 1798 Memoirs of the author of Vindication on the Rights of Womenalthough its reception, as we have anticipated, was not entirely good. In this work, Godwin documented himself through people who had known Wollstonecraft, regrouping all of her letters and works.

Today, what Wollstonecraft asked for seems the most logical to us, but at the time it generated great controversy. Perhaps the world was not ready to receive a woman like Mary Wollstonecraft.

Wollstonecraft has sometimes been seen as the first feminist, and in some ways she was; Although she is not the only woman in history who dared to claim her rights. Feminism had not yet been born, but she began to develop it in her work, that would be recovered in the 20th century. With Wollstonecraft, feminism was a little closer.

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