Prevalence Of Feminism During The Victorian Era And Mary Wollstonecraft 's A Room Of One 's Own And Wollstonecraft

In the excerpt from A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf argues that women writers face unfair educational, financial and social disadvantages. Throughout the excerpt, she hopes to persuade readers that in a patriarchal society, a woman must have privacy and financial independence in order to fulfill her literary potential. To accomplish this goal, Woolf effectively appeals to logos, pathos and ethos; however, her emphasis on establishing credibility most successfully persuades her readers.

Wollstonecraft transcended the notion that she is simply expressing grievances over the unjust treatment of women establishing herself as an articulate, intellectual thinker with innovative ideas and solutions for progressing society. Through voicing her opinions, Wollstonecraft created a small revolution for women’s rights that would encourage others to begin seeking equal treatment from the men of society.

Perhaps the most important thing that Wollstonecraft believes should be extended to women is education. She deems the main hindrance on women in her day is their lack of education. She strongly thought that if women were to be educated, they would be liberated, and be able to generate the same thoughts and brilliant ideas as men. On the education of women, Wollstonecraft writes:

She was a mother, a moral and political philosopher, a writer, and a feminist. Mary Wollstonecraft was the ideal image of what represented the push towards modern feminism. Some may even consider her as the founding mother of modern feminism itself. Much of Wollstonecraft’s literature is influenced by her own life experiences. In 1785, Wollstonecraft took on an employment opportunity as a governess. While spending most of her time there, she had a moment of epiphany where she realized that she was not suited for domestic work. Soon after, she returned to London and became a translator and wrote for a well-known publisher and discovered her love of writing. Eventually, years later she was then able to publish her most notable work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is still a very popular book which can be seen as a guide to becoming a better citizen and understanding feminism in a critical context. This essay will argue that Mary Wollstonecraft is still relevant to the feminist cause today as her views portrayed in her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman are still relatable to many of the feminist issues that currently exist around the world. This essay will do so by comparing how her views in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman can still be used as guiding principles to tackle feminist matters.

Wollstonecraft argued, and she did it very well, that women are starved of education in order to be trained to focus on their looks - for the pleasure of men. She spilled her sorrows as is told to abandon traits such as having a strong opinion, nobility, or voicing oneself. As these traits were considered masculine, and unflattering to be expressed by women. Traits of being outspoken, forming, and expressing that opinion were designated as masculine by men -- so that they could retain their grasp on society.

The Romantic Period built an environment where women were painted with flowery diction (Wollstonecraft, 216) and were incapable of independence. The Rights of Woman became a crucial topic, particularly in poetry which allowed women the freedom of expression. Accordingly, during the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, women writers did not need the prop of their male contemporaries like suggested. Evidently, women were able, successful, and professional writers in their own right. In fact, women often influenced male writers (Dustin, 42). Both Mary Wollstonecraft and Anna Letitia Barbauld are evidence that women did not need to rely on their male peers to become successful poets. Consequently, many poets took inspiration from them (Dustin, 32). In The Rights of Woman and Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Anna Letitia Barbauld and Mary Wollstonecraft had contrasting ideas. Barbauld’s The Rights of Woman was a documented reaction towards Wollstonecraft’s extremely controversial Vindication. Henceforth, both indicate a separate message for the Rights of the Woman. Assumedly, Barbauld misinterpreted Wollstonecraft and readings of The Rights of Woman in the twenty-first century appear antifeminist as a result.

Woolf demonstrates how women writers have often failed in this because of our frustration and bitterness with a world that presented to us and our writing not welcome, or even indifference, but hostility (41). She makes it clear that if there is ever going to be a “Shakespeare’s sister,” we must---at least while we are writing---swallow that sense of having been wronged, for it stands as an impediment to our creativity. This is the mental freedom that women writers must attain.

Wollstonecraft is not advocating for physical equality because in terms of nature, men are built in a more superior manner. However, one’s mind was not built to be superior or inferior depending on one’s sex. Wollstonecraft states that men have caused women’s minds to be, “rendered weak and wretched” due to the stereotypes that became embedded in minds and cultures for hundreds of years.

In an excerpt from her 1929 novel A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf presents an interesting question: With all the amazing literature of Elizabethan times, how could none of it have been written by women? She admits that there are not many hard facts from that age, but one can imagine that women did not have as many opportunities as men did, especially in the arts. Woolf invents a sister for the famed William Shakespeare and calls her Judith, supposing that Judith had the same literary talents and ambitions as her brother. Woolf writes Judith’s life story, chronicling Judith’s drab existence, daring escape, and tragic end, deciding that women of Shakespeare’s time couldn’t possibly write as Shakespeare did due to restrictions placed on them by society. The author intends to call attention to yet another injustice suffered by women in history, but one that is often overlooked: women’s influence, or lack thereof, in the arts. It is this unique facet of the classic women’s rights argument that makes Woolf’s piece effective.

During Victorian era novelist had to develop ways to avoid posing as threats to the order of the society . Something which even make the look anti-feminist, but still many of female writers of that period are known today for their early feminist agendas embedded in their works. Elizabeth Gaskell was one of Britain’s best known female writers, She was a conservative women. Although she was not the part of “the women question” a movement started in mid nineteenth century and gave rise to what we today called feminism, But still

Heralded as a brilliant early feminist, Wollstonecraft challenges the social issues of women, class, and human rights. In A Vindication of the Rights of Women Wollstonecraft logically attacks the forced subordination of women, reliance on outward beauty, and intellectual weakness of women (Black, 100-101). The references to well established patriarchal male writers, Dr. Gregory and Jean Rousseau, who both extol the preferred roles and attitudes of women, supports her claim that lack of education and forced domestication destroy a woman’s virtue and thus her viability as a righteous mother. Declaring women unfit as mothers due a lack of education and forced domestication is insulting. Wollstonecraft expresses Romantic ideals through empathy and authenticity in A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Wollstonecraft shows astounding authenticity by tackling a sensitive subject and illuminating the strain society has placed on both men and women to conform to social roles. Mary, as a woman, sympathizes with the plight of women and contests societal female

In Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she addressed many issues for women regarding civil rights and the expectations that were held for them at the time. “…men have… been led by viewing education in a false light; not considering it as the first step to form a being advancing gradually towards perfection; but only as a preparation for life.” (Wollstonecraft 58). Essentially, Wollstonecraft implied that men interpreted education only as a means of learning how to live life. In accordance with such an interpretation, women were only allowed to learn how to be wives and mothers. Wollstonecraft also stated her own perspective as to what education needed to be perceived as in contrast to what it was believed to be. After the large uproar that A Vindication of the Rights of Woman created, Wollstonecraft’s writing inspired many other female writers to join the fray.

Many female writers see themselves as advocates for other creative females to help find their voice as a woman. Although this may be true, writer Virginia Woolf made her life mission to help women find their voice as a writer, no gender attached. She believed women had the creativity and power to write, not better than men, but as equals. Yet throughout history, women have been neglected in a sense, and Woolf attempted to find them. In her essay, A Room of One’s Own, she focuses on what is meant by connecting the terms, women and fiction. Woolf divided this thought into three categories: what women are like throughout history, women and the fiction they write, and women and the fiction written about them. When one thinks of women and

In today’s world of 2017, feminism is more relevant and controversial than ever, with a new, controversial president and more and more women in positions of power. However, feminism has changed and evolved since the first writers expressed their wish for more women’s rights, as do all movements. “It is time to … restore to them their lost dignity—and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world,” wrote Mary Wollstonecraft in her Vindication in the Rights of Women (Wollstonecraft 49). Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of the feminist movement wanted women to be able to be a good wife or mother through education, but today’s feminists are educated already- they want more rights for women, such

essay in interestingly different ways. Bennett states that Woolf’s essay is not a feminist work, rejects the idea that Woolf’s discussion of women and