Historicising the Feminist: A Study of Mary Wollstonecraft's Political and Discursive Contexts

Abstract

This thesis has investigated the life and publications of Mary Wollstonecraft. The thesis is divided in to three chapters the first chapter explores the political and social context of late Eighteenth century England in which Wollstonecraft lived the majority of her life. It then moves on to discuss the 'Revolution Controversy' and Wollstonecraft's contribution to that debate. Giving specific attention to A Vindication of the Rights of Man as it is Wollstonecraft's first political publication, and was the first published response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Without first publishing A Vindication of the Rights of Man, Wollstonecraft could not have published her most famous work. Next the second chapter investigates Eighteenth century education, and how Wollstonecraft ideas on changing the nature of education would help reform society in her eyes. Education was recognized as having special significance by many Enlightenment philosophers, this thesis looks at the contribution of John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau to educational theory, and they ways in which Wollstonecraft responded to their ideas. In the final chapter the inclusive nature of Wollstonecraft's gender theory is considered. Wollstonecraft is widely recognised as publishing what became for many the founding document of modern western feminism. What is given less recognition is that Wollstonecraft was in fact interested in broad social reform, similar to many other Enlightenment philosophers, Wollstonecraft's social theory included changing education and socialisation for both women and men. Society could not be reformed without changing social and educational practices with regard to both II men and women. Wollstonecraft furthered the contemporary debate on the rights of man to include the rights of woman. Wollstonecraft criticised the unnatural distinctions of gender and class, setting out in both Vindications the negative consequences for the character of both men and women. Another less recognised aspect of Wollstonecraft's philosophy which this thesis has highlighted is the vital role that religion played, and its implications for her ideas. This aspect of Wollstonecraft's thought has tended to be over looked by many Wollstonecraft scholars, who try to place Wollstonecraft in some kind of political and social continuum which I think misses the revolutionary and far sighted nature of Wollstonecraft's philosophy. In taking a historicist approach or understanding to Wollstonecraft, by reading Wollstonecraft in the terms of the political and social environment of the late eighteenth century, it becomes easier to understand the radical nature of Wollstonecraft's ideas, and the personal hardships she faced as both a woman and a member of the lower middle class.