Dr Bridget Cotter, Lecturer in Political Theory, has written an article for The Conversation about Mary Wollstonecraft as ‘the mother of first-wave feminism’.
The article provides readers with an introduction to Wollstonecraft’s life and works, including her most famous text, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, and discusses how whilst her ideas can be applied to the plight of women today, they also have their limitations.
Speaking about how Wollstonecraft’s ideas are still relevant today, Dr Cotter said: “This idea, that women are rational beings with a right to self-determination, must still be fought for daily around the world. This is the case in every instance where, as women, we are forced to assert that we are not objects, or property, that we have not been made for someone else’s use or pleasure, that it is not justified to exclude us from education or politics, or prevent us from speaking our minds, whether through laws, violence, intimidation or ridicule.”
On some of the limitations of Wollstonecraft’s work, Dr Cotter added: “She was not writing for working class women and she said little about women of colour in spite of her abolitionism. Today’s women around the world deal with issues that Wollstonecraft could never have imagined.”
Read the full article on The Conversation’s website.
