Mary Wollstonecraft

Legacy: the Artists Behind the Legends

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the most revolutionary and influential feminist thinkers of the Romantic Era at the end of the 18th century. As a writer and philosopher, Mary is perhaps best known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a piece that argues that the presumed inferiority of women to men is due to their lack of an equal education; however, Wollstonecraft’s genius stems far beyond this progressive and, for the time period, radical article. Not only did Mary fiercely advocate for female rights in her very short four decades of life , but she also was actively involved in the French Revolution, and was additionally present when the revolution went to hell and became the Reign of Terror. Wollstonecraft’s literary works regrettably spent over a century following her death being ignored and condemned by the intellectual community for her unconventional ideas AND due to her own lifestyle, which while nowadays we might see as rather ordinary, the Victorian and tight-collared 19th century folk definitively disagreed. But to a certain degree, you could probably understand why given the context – she had two children, one out of wedlock, suffered and survived two suicide attempts, was seen as an active traitor to Britain for her participation in the French Revolution, and let’s not forget the HORRENDOUS demand for gender equality. Mary Wollstonecraft is, by and large, a woman to be admired, one who loved openly and without stigma, a woman who worked her ass off to support herself, her sisters, and her friends through literary publications, and last but not least, set the groundwork for the future feminist philosophers that would follow in her wake. So, let’s go ahead and get this episode rolling, shall we?