Femininity in Wollstonecraft
Why This Theme
The theme of femininity is important in understanding Wollstonecraft as well as Original Stories. Being a strong advocate for women's rights, she incorporated and used her arguments as foundations for her writings. Understanding her position on concepts like property rights and economic independence helps us to understand why the text matters. We are also able to then see how her feminist perspective influences her teachings and especially in Original Stories, how she wishes to teach the younger generation.Wollstonecraft's Position
Mary Wollstonecraft is known for her strong advocacy for women's rights as an Enlightenment philosopher during the late 1700s. She is considered one of the founding feminists for her work and arguments that influenced many later on. She argued property and contract rights and economic independence and she was in favor of women taking part in government. (Meany, 2019). As an advocate for women's rights, she tried to reform the world through calling for universality, instead of local manners and sensualist persuasions that illustrate women as lacking strength in virtue of character (Maoulidi, 2007). She desired an even playing field amongst men and women where intellectual abilities and virtues are judged the same and therefore her fight for women did not solely address the place and rights of women but called out the position and privilege of men (Maoulidi, 2007).As evident in Original Stories, Wollstonecraft believed that what one gets out of hard work/exertion and effort is what allows one to achieve economic independence not the possession of wealth (Halldenius, 2017). It was suggested during the time period, that it was the right thing for women to do by marrying for financial support. Wollstonecraft offers the perspective that supporting ones self is not enough. Being able to economically support oneself is a central idea to Wollstonecraft's feminist approach.
Feminism in Original Stories
Original Stories challenges a lot of what was "expected" of a woman at the time or what was considered "acceptable". Mrs. Mason, sent to govern Mary and Caroline, is a widow and childless and does not remarry after her husband's death. This in itself challenges what was expected of women at the time as they were seen as needing to continue marrying in order to support oneself. Wollstonecraft's choice of Mrs. Mason, whose history and stance on marriage challenges those beliefs, to raise Mary and Caroline, is evident of Wollstonecraft's intention to provide a strong woman figure to guide the two girls.In addition, Mrs. Mason is not vain about her appearance and one of her lessons she gives Mary and Caroline is to be vain about ones appearance but only to show an image of composition (Moore, 1999). She uses the example of Mrs. Trueman, a woman who "seems the freest from vanity, and those frivolous views which degrade the female character. Her virtues claim respect, and the practice of them engrosses her thoughts; yet her clothes are apparently well chose, and you always see her in the same attire"(Wollstonecraft, 86). Here, Wollstonecraft challenges the notion of how woman are expected to present themselves and how they are supposed to dress.