Abstract
Mary Wollstonecraft was not born a feminist. However much she may have chafed under the tyranny of men, she kept silence until she had served her apprenticeship as a writer. In 1786, while she was teaching school at Newington Green, she wrote Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, a collection of innocuous platitudes which any maiden schoolmistress then might have approved; in 1787, while serving as governess in an Irish family, she wrote Mary, a semi-autobiographical novel of sensibility about a virtuous and long-suffering heroine.1 Then in 1790, at the age of 31, she emerged suddenly as a second Mrs. Macaulay, a female champion of human emancipation, when she published her Vindication of the Rights of Men in answer to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. And early in 1792 she eclipsed even Mrs. Macaulay by urging, in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, that her own sex be included in the general emancipation. She who had been an obscure schoolma'am dabbling in fiction became for many of her contemporaries the symbol of women's potentialities—and for others, a shameless vixen.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
