5 facts about Mary Wollstonecraft (2024)

5 facts about Mary Wollstonecraft

This September, the OUPPhilosophy team honors Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) as their Philosopher of the Month. Wollstonecraft was a novelist, a moral and political philosopher, an Enlightenment thinker and a key figure in the British republican milieu. She is often considered the foremother of western feminism, best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which was written during the period of great social and political upheavals towards the end of the eighteenth century. This seminal work contains her reflections on the conditions of women and expounds powerful arguments for gender equality.

Here are five things you might not know about Mary Wollstonecraft:

1. Wollstonecraft was the eldest of 8 children, only one of whom received a formal education.
   
2. In 1784 Wollstonecraft and her sister opened a school for girls in London.
   
3. Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women presented a strong critique of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s position on the education of women.
   
4. Among Wollstonecraft’s major influences were the rational dissenters (later known as Unitarians).
   
5. Writer Mary Shelly was the daughter of Wollstonecraft and philosopher William Godwin.
   

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