The Political Theory of Mary Wollstonecraft

In the middle of the 18th century, something was changing in Europe. After the Renaissance banished religion from the center of intellectual and political life and the Enlightenment promoted the idea that education is key to form extraordinary human beings beyond their origins and physical appearance, the following question arose: why were women still confined to the realm? domestic?

English writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft she dedicated a good part of her time to dealing with this issue of inequality and the clear dominance of men over women. Her works were very influential in the development of the first wave of feminism, which emerged several decades after her death.

Next we will see how these first questions of male dominance were formulated by Mary Wollstonecraft and in what way she was opposed to the dominant ideology in her time.

• Related article: "Types of feminism and their different currents of thought"

Who was Mary Wollstonecraft? Short biography

Mary Wollstonecraft was born in April 1759 in London. She soon she began to experience the malaise produced by poverty when her father spent all the family money, so that both she and her parents had to move from one place to another without achieving stability economical.

During her adulthood, she will soon she began to get frustrated with the difficulties women had to go through when it comes to making a living. Western society was designed to push women toward marriage, and the creation of the family was taken for granted as the vital goal of the entire female gender in general. However, Wollstonecraft did not give up: she created a school with her sisters and with her friend Fanny Blood.

However, soon after, Blood became engaged to a man and went to live with him outside the country. This complication, together with the fact that Wollstonecraft went to Lisbon to take care of her friend when her health deteriorated, caused the school project to fail. From this point Mary Wollstonecraft concentrated on writing, both essays and novels. She died in 1797 from a birth complication.

The theory and thought of Mary Wollstonecraft

Here you can see the theoretical foundations on which Mary Wollstonecraft's philosophy was based and that made her one of the earliest references in feminism.

1. The importance of education

Mary Wollstonecraft was totally influenced by the Enlightenment, and consequently believed in progress made through rationality and learning. This idea so normal to our eyes at that time was radical if it was applied to the differences between men and women. It was assumed that all differences in interests and patterns of behavior they were something biological, and that traditional roles were a true reflection of the "nature" of both sexes.

2. The principle of equality

Thus, Mary Wollstonecraft argued that the default option was to assume equality between the sexes, and that in any case it was the defenders of the innate differences between men and women who should provide powerful evidence in favor of their intellectual position.

This point, together with the previous one, led Mary Wollstonecraft to totally reject Rousseau's pedagogical approach, which from her point of view based in romanticism it proposed the segregation between boys and girls in schools in order to offer adapted to “naturally differentiated” characteristics.

3. Break with tradition

This philosopher explained the strong differences between the expected roles of men and women were mainly due to the physical dominance of man over woman chronicled throughout the generations. Thus, the woman is educated to abide without question a passive and helpful attitude naturally, it moves away from the full intellectual development that many men enjoy through academy.

This point led Mary Wollstonecraft to question a good part of the traditions, since she understood that these can be a form of oppression and that therefore they must be reviewed and adapted to human well-being.

This posture, by the way, was developed several centuries later by Simone de Beauvoir and other properly feminist theorists of the time, although Mary Wollstonecraft did not enjoy access to large amounts of information gleaned from anthropology due, of course, to the time when she she had to live.

• You may be interested: "Simone de Beauvoir's feminist theory: what is woman?"

In conclusion

Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas fit very well with the liberal conception of egalitarianism. It did not go much further than denouncing the clear impositions of men on women, such as the impossibility of having economic independence and the lack of rights in the political sphere. However, served to cast doubt on the idea that women should remain submissive for their own biology and for pointing out that traditional traditions and roles can be very harmful if they are not questioned.