This is the videorecording from my recent invited Women's History Month lecture on Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of the Vindication of the Rights of Women (among other works).
During the lecture, I discuss her childhood, relationships with her family and her close friend Fanny Blood, and the succession of early jobs and professions. Then we focus on her deliberate choice to move to London and make her living by writing - first by translation and novel review work - then then by her own writings.
We discuss a number of ideas from one of her main works, The Vindication of the Rights of Women, including the nature and importance of education, civilization and human development, culture's impact upon gender inequality, and the need for friendship in marriage.
We also discuss the two main romantic relationships Wollstonecraft had in the course of her life - in the last five years of her life. One was with Gilbert Imlay, with whom she had her daughter, Fanny. He effectively abandoned both of them, which lead to Wollstonecraft's two suicide attempts. The other was with William Godwin, who she married, and with whom she had her daughter Mary.
After her daughter's Mary birth, Wollstonecraft died of complications from the birth. Godwin would soon publish his biography of Wollstonecraft, which then effectively ruined her reputation for roughly a century.
The slides for the presentation are available here - https://www.academia.edu/32096173/Mary_Wollstonecraft_-_Womens_History_Month_Lecture
You can get Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women here - https://amzn.to/3n7dJnI
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#Wollstonecraft #Feminism #Rights
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