Mary Wollstonecraft

[T]hat the science of politics is in its infancy, is evident from philosophers scrupling to give the knowledge most useful to man that determinate distinction. 1 In this talk, I discuss Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects and A Vindication of the Rights of Men as books of philosophy about rational materialism. Based on an analysis of Lockean thought, as applied to the possibility of women's development of reason, Wollstonecraft suggests a new way to develop thought via materialism. She suggests that the mind is formed by experience and education, for women as well as for men.

Nel Noddings, a prominent American feminist, philosopher, and educator, was recognised for her contributions to the ethics of care, educational philosophy, and educational theory. Noddings presents a radical transformation to this current educational system. This paper aims to revisit the pedagogical aspects of Nel Noddings. Education denoted as an "act of care". This type of care is generally connected to students, particularly from the pedagogical standpoint. An ethics of care promotes friendly behaviour between teachers and students, resulting in child-centric education. Noddings believes that contemporary schools should be structured around care themes, which assist teachers in organising student's pedagogical centred. Noddings' pedagogical approach emphasises caring relationships, individualised attention, and moral education, fostering a supportive environmental system, promoting a model that is more human-centred and relational.

This research paper explores the significant contributions of Western women education thinkers to the landscape of higher education, highlighting their roles in shaping educational theory, policy, and practice. The work examines the influence of key figures such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Emma Willard, Catharine Beecher, Kalliopi Kehajia, Maria Montessori, and Nel Noddings. Each thinker is presented in the context of their advocacy for women's rights and educational reform, emphasizing the importance of equal access to education, experiential learning, and care ethics in pedagogy. The analysis illustrates how these women's philosophies continue to resonate in contemporary discussions on gender equity and inclusive education, underscoring their lasting impact on academic discourse and practices. The paper concludes by affirming that recognizing and integrating the legacies of these women is essential for fostering a more equitable and transformative education system that meets the diverse needs of all students.

No século XVIII, pensadores de diferentes áreas do conhecimento inauguraram uma nova perspectiva epistemológica para o Ocidente. Na filosofia, economia e política, entre outros campos do saber, ideias inovadoras romperam com os paradigmas do pensamento europeu. Esses conceitos revolucionários ficaram conhecidos historicamente sob o termo Iluminismo. É nesse novo panorama intelectual que surge na Grã-Bretanha um grupo de autores que pela primeira vez questiona a posição de inferioridade social na qual as mulheres se encontram. William Alexander, Mary Astell, Catharine Macaulay e Mary Wollstonecraft são alguns dos pensadores que escrevem obras de cunho protofeminista, lançando as bases de uma filosofia de emancipação e direitos iguais para as mulheres do século XVIII. A partir dos escritos de filósofos como David Hume, John Locke e Jean-Jacques Rousseau (e da crítica dos mesmos), essas vozes que advogam uma maior igualdade no tratamento da figura feminina articulam um novo posicionamento da mulher em nível histórico, social e educacional.

In my paper, I employ the framework of feminist disability studies to
critically examine how the intersecting factors of disability, gender, and
the politics of recognition weave an interpretation of the narratives of
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein creates a creature in his
lab and is frightened afterwards because the creature looks different from
what is perceived as “normal.” He immediately recognizes the creature as a
monster,” “fiend,” and “devil.” After being rejected by his creator, the
creature interacts with other characters and receives similar reactions
because society conforms to a certain set of ableist norms about
physical appearance. Frankenstein’s misrecognition has a damaging
effect on the creature’s understanding of himself as he emulates the
socially induced behavior of misrecognition and behaves monstrously.
I argue that though the creature is artificially created by Frankenstein,
the disabled monster is the byproduct of sociocultural stigma and
oppression. Drawing from feminist disability studies, I demonstrate
how societal norms and expectations shape the experiences of disabled
individuals, particularly in relation to gendered expectations. By
conducting a thorough textual analysis of the novel, I also argue
that Shelley’s narrative serves as a powerful commentary on the
marginalization of those perceived as different.

Dans A Vindication of the Rights of Men , Mary Wollstonecraft élabore
une réponse à Edmund Burke en termes d'une opposition entre la justice et le
statut de la propriété foncière aristocratique. Parmi les effets de la domination des propriétaires fonciers, l'un des plus pernicieux est l'oppression des femmes, légitimée par l'utilisation du langage de la sensibilité. L'article vise à discuter l'analyse que fait Wollstonecraft des fondements et valeurs morales de la société aristocratique.

Ne zaman kadın ve erkek arasındaki eşitsiz durum ve kadına karşı tutum araştırılsa, göze çarpan ilk etken eğitim sistemi olmuştur. Feminist Felsefe kadınların her daim gölgede bırakılmasını haklı çıkarmayı amaçlayan söylemlerin öne sürdüğü sebeplerin geçersizliğini kanıtlamaya çalışırken,
bu ezilmeye dayanak sağlamaya çalışan eril dille hesaplaşmaya gitmiştir. Liberal feminizmin öncülerinden olan ve ilk en kapsamlı feminist teori eserini yazan Mary Wollstonecraft, Kadın Haklarının Gerekçelendirilmesi’nde döneminin kadınlarının en büyük sorunu olduğunu iddia ettiği eğitim sistemini ve bu yanlış eğitimin temellerini sağlamlaştıran erkek düşünürleri eleştirmiştir. Hesaplaşmasının en önemli kısmını Jean-Jacques Rousseau’ya ve onun Emile’ine ayıran Wollstonecraft, kadın ve erkek arasındaki doğuştan geldiği öne sürülen egemenlik ilişkisinin aslında hiç de öyle olmadığını verdiği örneklerle göstermeye çalışır.

Do ponto de vista filosófico, interessa notar que Sofia é o modelo da
mulher: o padrão verdadeiro e virtuoso por estar em conformidade com a
natureza. Nas páginas que seguem, proponho-me a participar da longa conversa entre intérpretes protofeministas e feministas da obra de Rousseau, sugerindo que a entrada em cena de Sofia instaura uma contradição de grande porte na filosofia prática rousseauísta. Não se trata, na minha interpretação, de uma tensão entre o plano da fundamentação filosófica e o da aplicação. Tampouco de mais um paradoxo, como aqueles que Luiz Roberto Salinas Fortes nos ensinou a enxergar na obra do genebrino.  Mas sim de uma contradição interna que afeta a base do edifício teórico rousseauniano e se instaura no domínio da sua fundamentação.

This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the University of Tasmania or any other institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief no material previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis.

This article charts the rise of Mary Wollstonecraft as a international feminist meme in 1890s Britain, Germany, and the United States as a result of the centennial markers of her 1792 Rights of Woman and 1797 death. To this end, we conduct a comparative rhetorical and ideological study of the symbolic political uses of Wollstonecraft by four leaders of women's movements at the turn of the twentieth century: Millicent Fawcett of Britain, Bertha Pappenheim and Lily Braun of Germany, and Carrie Chapman Catt of the United States. We trace the emergence of two dominant feminist memes of Wollstonecraft between 1890 and 1941: the womanly women's rights advocate and the feminist pioneer. With their mimetic makeovers of Wollstonecraft, feminist leaders and activists exploited intersections of race, class, gender, and nation to build the authority, appeal, and sense of history and purpose of their movements.

A função e o sentido do casamento são apresentados por Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), em “Reivindicação dos direitos da mulher” (1792). Escrito em formato de reunião de panfletos e publicado antes de partir para a França revolucionária, com o propósito de acompanhar o levante republicano contra o Antigo Regime, “Reivindicação dos direitos da mulher” contém uma denúncia generalizada da desigualdade de gênero e de seus efeitos deletérios, e um projeto de reforma das instituições e da sociedade. É nesse texto que a filósofa teoriza de maneira consistente e fecunda, sobre o casamento como instituição central a ser transformada, e é também ao tratar do casamento que a filósofa de fato opera com os conceitos de direitos e obrigações. “Reivindicação dos direitos da mulher” tem “direitos” no título, mas é de fato um livro sobre educação e sua argumentação se ergue sobre um pressuposto metafísico, a partir e contra a teoria da liberdade de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Neste estudo, apresento como a categoria do casamento como instituição pedagógica e política desempenhar papel estruturante na transformação da sociedade. A função do casamento, para a filósofa, é articular as esferas privada e pública, de maneira engajada nos requisitos revolucionários, como uma categoria da transformação social. Este é o sentido da noção de “cimento da sociedade” que pretendo apresentar.

In Wollstonecraft's early writings, she articulates the foundational theological and philosophical principles that would underpin her work throughout her career. One difference between her early and later work lies in the way that the values to which she refers are combined. Whereas Wollstonecraft at first appeals to the separate ideals of independence, equality, and virtue, from the 1790s onwards she integrates these into a characteristic republican framework that was in common use amongst dissenting theorists at the time. The set of values on which Wollstonecraft draws, and the version of the republican framework that she develops, closely resemble those of Richard Price with whose work she was familiar. Examining the structural similarities between their respective models, I argue, gives us an insight into the systematic manner of aspects of Wollstonecraft's own thought. It also allows us to see how Wollstonecraft goes beyond the republicanism of Price and others as she develops her own feminist solutions to the problems of structural domination.

This paper explores the way in which Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818) illuminates the physiological dimension of the sublime experience and its profound impact on the subject. Frankenstein's creature presents provocative implications of how the unruly physiological functions of the body can defamiliarize the Enlightenment understanding of an ideal human being anchored in rationalism. My perspective adds to the aesthetics of the sublime, specifically the postmodern ideas of dissonance and immanence demonstrated by the creature's signs of bodily unruliness, from instincts of self-preservation to carnal desires, which cause the spiritual effects of shock and horror in the creator. I argue that not only does Shelley provide a lens through which to perceive the defamiliarized world where the modern subject consistently encounters the unknown other as represented by the creature, but she also kindles a new kind of sympathy that can be enacted through the compromise of the self and the other's disruptive physiological responses. In this respect, this paper employs the notion of the "physiological sublime" to explore Shelley's incorporation of the sublime into the physiological dimension of interpersonal relations, and on the manifestation of sympathy as arising from the subject's acknowledgment of their own physiological otherness as it develops through direct encounters with the other.

Aquest llibre aplega les veus imprescindibles per a comprendre l'evolució del feminisme al llarg dels segles. S'hi presenta la vida i les obres d’autores que van decidir pensar i repensar què significa ser dona, individualment i col·lectiva, perquè només llegint, dialogant i forjant espais de trobada es pot teixir una tradició en comú. El resultat és una antologia amb els textos essencials del pensament feminista, tant clàssics com actuals.
On són les dones? Vides i manifestos recupera una vintena d’intel·lectuals que van combatre el patriarcat amb l'escriptura.

A revolutionary figure in a revolutionary time, she took up and lived out not only the liberal call for women's educational and moral equality, but virtually all of the other related, violently contested questions of 1790s-questions pertaining to the principles of political authority, tyranny, liberty, class, sex, marriage, childbearing, property, prejudice, reason, sentimentality, promises, suicide, to name only a few. (Johnson 1)

This article charts the rise of Mary Wollstonecraft as a international feminist meme in 1890s Britain, Germany, and the United States as a result of the centennial markers of her 1792 Rights of Woman and 1797 death. To this end, we conduct a comparative rhetorical and ideological study of the symbolic political uses of Wollstonecraft by four leaders of women's movements at the turn of the twentieth century: Millicent Fawcett of Britain, Bertha Pappenheim and Lily Braun of Germany, and Carrie Chapman Catt of the United States. We trace the emergence of two dominant feminist memes of Wollstonecraft between 1890 and 1941: the womanly women's rights advocate and the feminist pioneer. With their mimetic makeovers of Wollstonecraft, feminist leaders and activists exploited intersections of race, class, gender, and nation to build the authority, appeal, and sense of history and purpose of their movements.

Against the background of the international political crises generated by the early phase of the French Revolution at Nootka Sound in 1790 and in Saint-Domingue in 1791, Mary Wollstonecraft developed a capacious political theory of the "rights of humanity." She pushed beyond narrow post-revolutionary European constructions of "the rights of man" which ignored or excluded "the poor," "Indians," "African slaves," and "women." While closely following the international politics of the French Revolution, Wollstonecraft developed the core arguments of A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Her key philosophical innovation was to publicly universalize the conceptual scope of rights, such that rights were no longer-implicitly or explicitly-solely the legal entitlement of propertied white European men, but rather the moral and political entitlement of the whole of humanity across nations. Yet she rhetorically contradicted and philosophically limited the crosscultural universalism of her theory of equal rights by punctuating her arguments with Western Protestant and Orientalist stereotypes of Eastern despotism. Consequently, international politics and international prejudice shaped Wollstonecraft's theory of equal rights and her application of it to peoples and cultures beyond those of Western Protestant Europe.

Writers have long been attracted to the possibilities for thinking about contemporary political problems and debates in the format of a literary production. While this was often enough pragmatic—think only of the wisdom in moving court intrigues to distant Rome—it also and importantly allowed authors to imagine different patterns of social life and interaction. In an age of empire and colonial expansion, this kind of opportunity for an artistic ‘encounter’ with non-Europeans would be taken up repeatedly by writers across the continent, with popular stories being reworked into plays, operas, and ballets, and with characters, names, and plotlines reappearing across languages, often enough with varied endings and a changed moral ‘takeaway’ depending upon time and place.

The focus for our discussions this semester will be on these sorts of literary projects appearing across the long eighteenth century, with special attention paid to the work done by female authors. Such works have had particularly interesting reception histories. Typically derided at publication as low-quality products by an inherently inferior class of writer (i.e., women), the pieces would in later years be lauded as texts produced by early feminists. In this vein, non-white protagonists were seen to be vehicles for veiled critiques of domestic politics, and a call thereby for the emancipation of women. And indeed, we will spend time in the middle of the semester looking at some of the more famous direct calls for women’s rights put forward by Olympe de Gouges, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Amalia Holst. That said, feminists have in recent years pushed back against the lionization of many of these literary works, condemning them for ethnocentric bias if not outright racism. We will take a look at all of this throughout the semester, with each of the texts carefully paired with critical contemporary analyses alongside supporting background literature that can orient us as to the social and political context of both the author, and the site, upon which the action will unfold.

Tem-se por objetivo apresentar como o termo luxury, principalmente por conta da polidez, altera-se na Grã-Bretanha, entre os séculos XVII e XVIII, tornando-se objeto de querela e, ainda, como essa querela se desenvolve até a segunda metade do século XVIII. Para isso, investiga-se o tratamento fornecido por filósofos marcantes para a discussão, as bases contextuais impostas pela identidade nacional polida, e, também, a relação que o termo cria não apenas com a polidez, mas, também, com o comércio, o progresso científico e o conforto. Espera-se que seja possível não apenas identificar a querela do luxo particular à Grã-Bretanha, mas que se torne viável tomar tal termo, tal como a polidez, como uma chave interpretativa própria à época.

This research note provides an analysis of several overlooked extracts from Wollstonecraft's writings, which were published in Britain between 1792-1795. It uses these publications to argue that although politics played a significant role in Wollstonecraft's reception, her writings were often extracted because of their stylistic beauty, their diverting vividity, and their usefulness as educational works.

Una notte, intorno al Sacro Fuoco al centro di una foresta, si riunisce un gruppo di donne fuori dallo spazio tempo. Siedono in cerchio, per condividere le loro storie alla pari e celebrare la Grande Madre fino al giorno seguente, alcune tra le più grandi donne vissute sulla terra, sciamane, alchimiste, scienziate, attiviste, intellettuali, tutte più o meno ignorate o occultate dalla storia “a misura d’uomo”, per decadi, secoli, millenni. Brigida di Kildare incarnazione della Dea Brigid, la grande mistica e scienziata Ildegarda di Bingen, Guglielma la Boema e la sua papessa Maifreda da Pirovano che incarnarono la Dea e crearono un loro ordine monastico indipendente dalla chiesa di Roma. Sabina Spielrein che ispirò Jung e Freud e da malata di mente divenne psichiatra dei bambini. Gabriela Mistral e Marie Curie che ricevettero il Nobel e subito dopo furono dimenticate. Marija Gimbutas che coi suoi scavi ha riportato nel mondo la memoria della civiltà della Dea. Mary Wollstonecraft e sua figlia Mary Shelley, che centinaia di anni fa scrissero sui diritti delle donne e vissero in modo libero, quando le donne potevano essere solo schiave, la figlia creando un romanzo capolavoro. Cristine de Pizan la prima giornalista e storica professionista alla corte di Francia del XV sec. e Myriam Magdal, la Madre di tutte….
La loro versione della storia, molto diversa da quella riportata dai libri del patriarcato, è una finestra sulla visione femminile, sulla creatività, sulla genialità, sul coraggio e sull’intraprendenza di donne che, sebbene la storia degli uomini le abbia ignorate a lungo e in alcuni casi continui a farlo, sono state e saranno modelli per ognuna di noi che desideri risvegliarsi davvero.
Le sorelle stanno insieme intorno al Sacro Fuoco tutta la notte, raccontano la loro storia e segreti mai svelati prima, condividono cibo e bevande e al termine ricevono una visita inaspettata dopo aver officiato i riti mattutini dell’acqua. Infine se ne vanno. Ciascuna torna alla sua attuale incarnazione, lasciando a noi che leggiamo un bagaglio di incommensurabile sapere magico. Devana ascolta e trascrive i loro racconti intorno al fuoco.
Questo romanzo ha un seguito pubblicato qualche anno dopo - Antenate 2 Worisiana - dove altre di loro si incontreranno nel deserto e proseguiranno i racconti delle loro vite.

Rokeya waged a persistent struggle for female education braving the social norms and barriers that dictated an all-male presence in education and stood between women and intellectual culture. She did not believe in any disparity or discipline differences between male and female education and sought women's access invariably to all branches of knowledge. For these and many other reasons, Rokeya's greatness as a social thinker and advocate of women's rights may remain unsurpassed for a long period to come. People who use feminism to vent their prejudices and to satisfy their predilections may come and go, but Rokeya's sincerity, courage, hard work and sense of purpose will stand tall and long.

This is the final author's draft of a chapter now published in R. Gibson and C. Whitton (eds.) Cambridge Critical Guide to Latin Literature (Cambridge, 2024) p. 395-446. It offers an accessible overview of reception theory as it evolved within the discipline of Classical Studies, a survey of some current trends and movements, and suggestions for future directions.

Two rival accounts of women’s rights exist in American history. These disparate accounts map on to rival accounts of rights per se, which themselves map onto rival accounts of who we are as human beings. These rival accounts of the human person -- and of the theories of law and rights that flow from them -- explain much of our legal and political discord today.

Here, I will re-introduce the concept of rights as properly grounded in the natural law. But there’s a complication in offering a natural law approach to the rights of women which I’ll contend with as well. For a good portion of American history, after all, the “laws of nature” were understood to permit exclusion of women from participation in civil and political rights. I’m going to show why a natural law account properly includes the rights of women, drawing upon women’s rights advocates from the 18th and 19th centuries. I’ll conclude by arguing that anti-discrimination law, properly understood, is a just determination of the natural law in our day, and that, as properly understood, abortion restrictions do not discriminate against women.

el ensayo intenta mapear las múltiples formas de opresión y dominio que, en el contexto contemporáneo, pueden comprenderse recurriendo a esta categoría. Un aspecto relevante, en el contexto de las esclavitudes contemporáneas, consiste en el hecho de que seres humanos, considerados como "corps d'exception" y "vidas desechables", se encuentran enjaulados en formas de subyugación que implican la confisca y la segregación del cuerpo, en la más completa violación de todo derecho. Esto hace decisivo legitimar y practicar un nuevo abolicionismo, porque la esclavitud-no obstante haya sido abolida a nivel jurídico-existe, se expande y parece tener un grande "porvenir".

This research tries to analyze the women’s struggle towards stereotypes in the novel The Case of The Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery. The objectives of this research are to identify, classify and analyze the phenomena of the historical picture of stereotypes for women in the 18th century pictured in the novel, and how the women struggled with the stereotypes in it. This was qualitative research with descriptive method. The researcher utilized the liberal feminism theory by Mary Wollstonecraft in analyzing the data. First, the researchers tried to find out how was the historical women's struggles at that time and after that found out characters who struggled with stereotypes in the novel. The result of this research was the character shows how she struggles to find her mother in terms of seizing the right to vote for women, and Enola, the main character, changes people's views about women at that time. Enola was also an illustration that not all women had to followe...

Since time immemorial, the universal notion of young women to take over the household chores, be taken as wives and take care of their children had been circulating. In José Rizal’s letter to the young women of Malolos, he expressed his great joy and uphold for their active participation towards the society’s matter. Despite of being viewed as having limited capabilities, these women had taken their role towards the progressive movement of nation-building, in which, has caught Rizal’s urge to invigorate these young women of Malolos to set the standards to their fellow countrywomen.

Letter to the Women of Malolos Women back in the days, were viewed nothing more than objects by men. Producers and forgers of the next generations. Man, from its birth is held and cared by the mother, while their father's role is to provide for the family and household he built. Women's right was nothing but a mere illusion, a thing that is unheard of by many. Rizal wrote to the women of Malolos, Bulcan in support of providing women the chance to be educated, this was after the latter sent a letter to then Governor-General Valeriano Welyer in 1888. Jose Rizal in his letter pointed out, his excitement

Rizal's letter to young women of Malolos was a powerful call to action and empowerment
addressed to a group of young Filipinas. In the letter, Rizal commends the women of Malolos for
their courage and initiative in seeking education and social reform. He encourages them to
continue their pursuit of knowledge and to stand up against injustice and oppression. Rizal
emphasized the importance of education in shaping the future of the nation as he pleaded to his
other literary works, urging women to cultivate their intellect and contribute to the progress of
society. He critiques the prevailing social norms and calls for a transformation in the treatment of
women, advocating for their rights and dignity. Through his letter, we will examine how Rizal
instigated the women of Malolos to rise and take an active role in society.