Why Wollstonecraft?
Philosopher | Visionary | Advocate
“The wiser, and the better you grow, the more visible, if I may use the expression, will God become—For wisdom consists in searching Him out—and goodness in endeavouring to copy His attributes.”
In 1792, the British philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft penned the now famous Vindication of the Rights of Woman. For Wollstonecraft, women’s capacity to reason, and thus to pursue reason to its proper ends – virtue (imitation of divine perfection) and wisdom (imitation of divine reason) – was the very foundation for women’s just claims to political freedom and legal equality. Freedom and equality thus were not ends in themselves but necessary means to higher human ends: the common human pursuit of intellectual and moral excellence.
“...to rise in excellence by the exercise of powers implanted for that purpose.”
A freedom bereft of wisdom and virtue would reduce men to beasts, Wollstonecraft claimed. And this was especially true in intimate relations between men and women, the fertile well-spring of the domestic affections she recognized as the source of every public virtue.
“We are all dependent on each other; and this dependence is wisely ordered by our Heavenly Father, to call forth many virtues, to exercise the best affections of the human heart, and fix them into habits.”
The self-taught philosopher argued that if women, like men, were afforded intellectual and moral formation and the opportunities to engage in serious-minded occupations, they would enjoy greater independence of mind and in turn better appreciate their distinctive duties to their families and beyond.
“Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfill; but they are human duties, and the principles that should regulate the discharge of them, I sturdily maintain, must be the same ”
Wollstonecraft viewed the affectionate inculcation of virtue in children to be among the most essential of all social duties, and so motherhood and fatherhood the very highest of callings.
“The main business of our lives is to learn to be virtuous; and He who is training us up for immortal bliss, knows best what trials will contribute to make us so.”
Her vision for marriage – the highest form of friendship; a relationship of reciprocity between equals built upon sexual integrity, mutual trust, and collaboration; a shared project for the upbringing of children; and the best means to restore harmony between the sexes – remains Wollstonecraft’s most farsighted vision.
“The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other. This I believe to be an indisputable truth, extending it to every virtue.”
With Wollstonecraft’s deep affirmation of intellectual, professional, and domestic life for both men and women – alongside her still unsurpassed rationale for women’s rights – the 18th century philosopher is the obvious patroness of our work. Indeed, Abigail Adams referred to herself as “Wollstonecraft’s pupil”.