WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.520 Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we crack open 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.080 the most fascinating intellectual stacks of history 00:00:05.080 --> 00:00:07.660 and philosophy, giving you the complete picture, 00:00:07.820 --> 00:00:10.939 the context, the complexity, and the core genius 00:00:10.939 --> 00:00:14.199 in a fraction of the time. Today, we are undertaking 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:17.519 a deep dive into Mary Wollstonecraft. She's an 00:00:17.519 --> 00:00:20.500 English writer, a philosopher, and her life was, 00:00:20.719 --> 00:00:23.359 well, it was as revolutionary and volatile as 00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:25.660 her ideas were enduring. Oh, absolutely. And 00:00:25.660 --> 00:00:27.359 in this case, it's just impossible to separate 00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:29.199 the woman from the work. Right. You know, until 00:00:29.199 --> 00:00:32.700 well into the 20th century, her famously unconventional 00:00:32.700 --> 00:00:35.780 life, it was just full of scandal, intense passion, 00:00:35.899 --> 00:00:39.079 tragic endings. It all tended to overshadow her 00:00:39.079 --> 00:00:41.200 actual contributions. And those contributions 00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:44.460 were huge. She is justly regarded as one of the 00:00:44.460 --> 00:00:46.759 founding feminist philosophers. Her pen wasn't 00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:48.859 just for writing. It was a weapon for radical 00:00:48.859 --> 00:00:51.159 social change. And that's our mission for you, 00:00:51.259 --> 00:00:53.240 the learner, today. We want to synthesize these 00:00:53.240 --> 00:00:56.280 two narratives, the key works that laid the groundwork 00:00:56.280 --> 00:00:59.799 for equality and the dramatic, often chaotic 00:00:59.799 --> 00:01:02.420 life events that forced her to write them. We 00:01:02.420 --> 00:01:04.260 want to give you a shortcut to understanding 00:01:04.260 --> 00:01:07.870 the complete picture, the enduring and... let's 00:01:07.870 --> 00:01:10.109 be honest, often controversial influence she 00:01:10.109 --> 00:01:11.989 had. And we have some incredible source material 00:01:11.989 --> 00:01:14.689 to work with. We really do. The conversation 00:01:14.689 --> 00:01:17.849 is going to center on three major works. First, 00:01:17.989 --> 00:01:21.129 the foundational text, A Vindication of the Rights 00:01:21.129 --> 00:01:24.790 of Woman from 1792. Of course, the big one. Then 00:01:24.790 --> 00:01:26.709 there's the explosive political pamphlet that 00:01:26.709 --> 00:01:29.129 came before it, A Vindication of the Rights of 00:01:29.129 --> 00:01:33.269 Men from 1790. And the third. And maybe surprisingly. 00:01:34.170 --> 00:01:36.230 Her most popular book during her own lifetime, 00:01:36.650 --> 00:01:39.430 The Travel Narrative Letters, written in Sweden, 00:01:39.569 --> 00:01:42.209 Norway, and Denmark. It's amazing when you look 00:01:42.209 --> 00:01:44.230 at the sheer volume of material she produced 00:01:44.230 --> 00:01:46.609 in such a short career. It's staggering. I mean, 00:01:46.609 --> 00:01:50.030 novels, philosophical treatises, a history of 00:01:50.030 --> 00:01:52.670 the French Revolution, a conduct book, even a 00:01:52.670 --> 00:01:54.750 children's book. And her time as an author was 00:01:54.750 --> 00:01:57.870 so compressed because her life was, well, brutally 00:01:57.870 --> 00:02:00.930 brief. She died at the age of 38, just 11 days 00:02:00.930 --> 00:02:02.879 after giving birth to her second daughter. A 00:02:02.879 --> 00:02:04.700 daughter who would become an immortal literary 00:02:04.700 --> 00:02:07.920 figure herself. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. 00:02:08.039 --> 00:02:10.740 Right. It's a lineage that speaks to this incredible 00:02:10.740 --> 00:02:13.900 intellectual power that continued despite, or 00:02:13.900 --> 00:02:16.620 maybe because of, all this personal tragedy. 00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:18.539 And the sources show us that this intellectual 00:02:18.539 --> 00:02:22.479 power was absolutely forged in fire. Okay, let's 00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:25.180 unpack this. Starting with the volatile environment 00:02:25.180 --> 00:02:28.129 that produced such a revolutionary thinker. Mary 00:02:28.129 --> 00:02:32.210 Wollstonecraft was born on April 27, 1759, in 00:02:32.210 --> 00:02:34.689 Spitalfields, London. And we tend to think of 00:02:34.689 --> 00:02:37.210 philosophers as these products of, you know, 00:02:37.210 --> 00:02:40.069 stability and higher education. But her reality 00:02:40.069 --> 00:02:42.780 was the complete opposite. It was defined by 00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:46.240 constant flux, financial insecurity. She was 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:48.539 the second of seven children, and her early life 00:02:48.539 --> 00:02:50.879 was just dictated by her father's profound ongoing 00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:52.939 failure. And this wasn't just a case of the family 00:02:52.939 --> 00:02:55.099 being poor, right? The sources say they started 00:02:55.099 --> 00:02:58.219 out with a comfortable income. Precisely. Her 00:02:58.219 --> 00:03:00.979 father, Edward John Wollstonecraft, he squandered 00:03:00.979 --> 00:03:03.120 a considerable inheritance, a really comfortable 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:05.889 income. On what? On speculative projects, mostly. 00:03:06.030 --> 00:03:08.090 And they were usually failed ones. The most devastating 00:03:08.090 --> 00:03:09.949 result for the family was just this constant 00:03:09.949 --> 00:03:12.490 uprooting. So they were always on the move? Always. 00:03:13.090 --> 00:03:15.550 Forced into these frequent, disruptive moves 00:03:15.550 --> 00:03:19.129 all across England, chasing new, ill -fated ventures. 00:03:19.389 --> 00:03:21.729 This instability, it just created this atmosphere 00:03:21.729 --> 00:03:25.129 of constant precarity. It's not hard to see how 00:03:25.129 --> 00:03:27.490 it established a deeply negative link in Mary's 00:03:27.490 --> 00:03:31.050 mind between, well, patriarchy and economic ruin. 00:03:31.210 --> 00:03:33.449 You can absolutely see the seeds of her later 00:03:33.449 --> 00:03:36.090 political theory right there. Economic independence 00:03:36.090 --> 00:03:39.129 for women isn't a luxury. It's a necessity for 00:03:39.129 --> 00:03:41.669 moral survival. And the financial cruelty, it 00:03:41.669 --> 00:03:44.449 wasn't limited to just bad business deals. No. 00:03:44.550 --> 00:03:47.389 He actively compounded the insecurity for his 00:03:47.389 --> 00:03:50.229 daughter. Once Mary came of age, she was actually 00:03:50.229 --> 00:03:52.430 compelled to turn over an inheritance she was 00:03:52.430 --> 00:03:54.680 expecting. He took it from her. He took it. It 00:03:54.680 --> 00:03:57.319 left you with absolutely no secure economic fallback. 00:03:57.539 --> 00:04:00.219 This personal experience of being dependent and 00:04:00.219 --> 00:04:02.039 then, you know, actively stripped of her own 00:04:02.039 --> 00:04:04.620 future wealth, it completely informed her intense 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:07.259 critique of laws that made women lifelong minors. 00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:09.680 Under the control of male relatives. Exactly. 00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:12.280 And the instability at home, it was matched by, 00:04:12.419 --> 00:04:15.120 well, domestic terror. The sources paint a very 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:16.759 disturbing picture of her father's behavior. 00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:20.389 He was violent. Very. Prone to drunken rages, 00:04:20.490 --> 00:04:23.670 regularly beat his wife. The consequences for 00:04:23.670 --> 00:04:26.069 young Mary were immediate, and they fundamentally 00:04:26.069 --> 00:04:28.670 shaped her character. She took on this protective, 00:04:28.769 --> 00:04:31.810 almost maternal role. She really did. As a teenager, 00:04:32.110 --> 00:04:34.610 the sources state she would literally sleep outside 00:04:34.610 --> 00:04:37.110 her mother's bedroom door to protect her from 00:04:37.110 --> 00:04:40.290 her father's violence. Wow. And that fierce protective 00:04:40.290 --> 00:04:43.009 instinct, it carried over to her sisters, Evreina 00:04:43.009 --> 00:04:46.009 and Eliza. She essentially became the de facto 00:04:46.009 --> 00:04:49.069 adult in a home where the father was a constant 00:04:49.069 --> 00:04:51.850 destabilizing threat. It's such a powerful origin 00:04:51.850 --> 00:04:54.329 story for a future feminist thinker. The first 00:04:54.329 --> 00:04:56.310 lesson she learns is that the traditional protected 00:04:56.310 --> 00:04:58.689 domestic sphere was actually the most dangerous 00:04:58.689 --> 00:05:01.089 place for a woman. That's it. And that necessity 00:05:01.089 --> 00:05:04.089 for fierce, defiant independence really sets 00:05:04.089 --> 00:05:06.199 the foundation for her later philosophy. And 00:05:06.199 --> 00:05:08.860 we see that defiance manifest in this dramatic 00:05:08.860 --> 00:05:11.839 defining moment of her early adulthood, the Eliza 00:05:11.839 --> 00:05:14.800 incident in 1784. This incident is absolutely 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:17.680 pivotal because it wasn't just abstract philosophy 00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:21.060 for her. It was a radical high stakes action 00:05:21.060 --> 00:05:23.980 that showed her total contempt for societal norms 00:05:23.980 --> 00:05:26.779 when those norms protected violence and despair. 00:05:27.139 --> 00:05:29.939 So her sister, Eliza, was married and suffering 00:05:29.939 --> 00:05:32.600 terribly. Terribly. It was likely from severe 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:35.199 postpartum depression, maybe even psychosis, 00:05:35.319 --> 00:05:37.660 and it was all exacerbated by a very difficult 00:05:37.660 --> 00:05:41.040 domestic situation. Mary was just convinced that 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:43.920 Eliza's life was at risk if she stayed. So Mary 00:05:43.920 --> 00:05:46.699 basically orchestrates a legal and social disaster 00:05:46.699 --> 00:05:49.560 to save her sister's sanity. That's a perfect 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:52.199 way to put it. She persuaded Eliza to take this 00:05:52.199 --> 00:05:55.220 unthinkable step, leaving her husband and her 00:05:55.220 --> 00:05:58.079 infant child. Wollstonecraft personally made 00:05:58.079 --> 00:06:00.300 all the arrangements for Eliza to flee. She was 00:06:00.300 --> 00:06:02.420 the architect of the escape. For the time, this 00:06:02.420 --> 00:06:04.759 was a profound, scandalous rupture. Now, we have 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:06.639 to remember the human costs, right? Under the 00:06:06.639 --> 00:06:09.160 social and legal framework of 18th century England, 00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:11.720 it sounds like a rescue mission, but the consequences 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:13.459 would have been brutal. They were catastrophic. 00:06:14.259 --> 00:06:17.740 Eliza faced intense, immediate social condemnation. 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:21.240 divorce was prohibitively expensive, almost impossible 00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:24.259 for most people. So she was left in this state 00:06:24.259 --> 00:06:27.439 of permanent non -marital status. She couldn't 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:30.120 remarry. Couldn't remarry, lost all rights to 00:06:30.120 --> 00:06:32.420 her property, and was essentially doomed to a 00:06:32.420 --> 00:06:36.139 life of poverty and hard labor. For Mary, seeing 00:06:36.139 --> 00:06:38.500 her sister endure domestic violence and then 00:06:38.500 --> 00:06:42.139 suffer such severe societal punishment, it profoundly 00:06:42.139 --> 00:06:45.240 informed her later scorching critique of marriage 00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:47.670 as an institution. As a contract that exclusively 00:06:47.670 --> 00:06:50.529 benefits the man. And traps the woman. Her philosophy 00:06:50.529 --> 00:06:52.769 wasn't theoretical. It was documented observation 00:06:52.769 --> 00:06:55.730 of institutionized cruelty. So moving beyond 00:06:55.730 --> 00:06:57.889 her family, she sought solace and intellectual 00:06:57.889 --> 00:07:00.529 refuge in these really intense friendships. Yes, 00:07:00.529 --> 00:07:02.250 and these friendships were characterized by this 00:07:02.250 --> 00:07:05.009 specific, almost needy emotional intensity. It 00:07:05.009 --> 00:07:07.189 kind of mirrors the volatility of her home life. 00:07:07.329 --> 00:07:10.759 Like her bond with Jane Arden. Exactly. Intellectually, 00:07:10.759 --> 00:07:13.199 it was great. They read books, attended lectures 00:07:13.199 --> 00:07:15.740 together, but the emotional demands Mary placed 00:07:15.740 --> 00:07:18.920 on it were immense. She confessed to Arden that 00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:21.579 she had formed romantic notions of friendship. 00:07:21.779 --> 00:07:23.939 I must have the first place or none. That's very 00:07:23.939 --> 00:07:26.240 telling. It reveals this psychological intensity, 00:07:26.519 --> 00:07:29.540 a need for a primary attachment, which we see 00:07:29.540 --> 00:07:31.920 throughout her life. But the truly formative 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:34.759 relationship was with Fanny Blood. Right. Wollstonecraft 00:07:34.759 --> 00:07:38.639 credited Frances Blood with, in her words, opening 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:41.879 her mind. It was a pivotal relationship where 00:07:41.879 --> 00:07:45.100 they envisioned what the sources call a female 00:07:45.100 --> 00:07:47.959 utopia. What did that look like? It was a dream 00:07:47.959 --> 00:07:49.639 where they could live together, support each 00:07:49.639 --> 00:07:52.160 other emotionally and financially, and just completely 00:07:52.160 --> 00:07:55.000 defy the economic necessity of marrying men they 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:57.660 did not love. A completely independent life powered 00:07:57.660 --> 00:08:00.779 by neutral support. Exactly. But tragically, 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:02.980 this utopian dream just collapsed under harsh 00:08:02.980 --> 00:08:06.060 economic realities. Fanny Blood got married. 00:08:06.490 --> 00:08:08.850 moved to Lisbon for her health, Mary, who was 00:08:08.850 --> 00:08:10.949 running a small school at the time, rushed over 00:08:10.949 --> 00:08:13.110 to nurse her when she became pregnant. But Fanny 00:08:13.110 --> 00:08:17.649 died. She died in 1785. The loss was profound. 00:08:18.149 --> 00:08:21.550 It just devastated Wollstonecraft. And the sources 00:08:21.550 --> 00:08:23.829 confirm this became the explicit inspiration 00:08:23.829 --> 00:08:28.050 for her first novel, Mary, a fiction which explores 00:08:28.050 --> 00:08:30.769 the intensity of female friendship and the failure 00:08:30.769 --> 00:08:34.009 of conventional marriage. So even her first creative 00:08:34.009 --> 00:08:37.429 output was driven by this intense emotional and 00:08:37.429 --> 00:08:40.730 biographical necessity, not just detached intellectual 00:08:40.730 --> 00:08:43.570 curiosity. Not at all. It was all deeply, deeply 00:08:43.570 --> 00:08:46.250 personal. Following these intense personal struggles 00:08:46.250 --> 00:08:48.350 and after the failure of the school she'd started 00:08:48.350 --> 00:08:51.090 with her sisters and fanny blood, Wollstonecraft 00:08:51.090 --> 00:08:54.149 had to confront the brutal economic reality of 00:08:54.149 --> 00:08:57.090 being a respectable but poor woman. And the options 00:08:57.090 --> 00:08:59.289 were just depressingly narrow. Right. Companion, 00:08:59.289 --> 00:09:01.009 teacher, or governess. These were pretty much 00:09:01.009 --> 00:09:03.070 the only acceptable roles outside of marriage. 00:09:03.269 --> 00:09:05.529 And she tried all of them. She briefly worked 00:09:05.529 --> 00:09:08.370 as a lady's companion, a job she absolutely detested. 00:09:08.429 --> 00:09:11.029 She called it tedious and demeaning. And she'd 00:09:11.029 --> 00:09:13.309 later use that experience in her arguments. Yes. 00:09:13.710 --> 00:09:16.470 She drew on it to argue in her conduct book just 00:09:16.470 --> 00:09:19.549 how humiliating and uninspiring these limited 00:09:19.549 --> 00:09:23.169 options were for educated women. After that, 00:09:23.190 --> 00:09:25.549 she took a position as a governess to the Anglo 00:09:25.549 --> 00:09:28.470 -Irish Kingsborough family. Which became something 00:09:28.470 --> 00:09:31.409 of an intellectual battleground. It did. She 00:09:31.409 --> 00:09:33.690 clashed significantly with Lady Kingsborough, 00:09:33.830 --> 00:09:36.330 who probably found Mary's intellectual rigor 00:09:36.330 --> 00:09:39.110 threatening to the established order. But she 00:09:39.110 --> 00:09:41.490 was an inspiration to the daughters. A profound 00:09:41.490 --> 00:09:44.090 inspiration. We know one of them, Margaret King, 00:09:44.269 --> 00:09:47.110 later credited Wollstonecraft with freeing her 00:09:47.110 --> 00:09:49.909 mind from all superstitions. And this experience 00:09:49.909 --> 00:09:52.509 also directly supplied the material for her children's 00:09:52.509 --> 00:09:54.789 book, Original Stories from Real Life. But the 00:09:54.789 --> 00:09:57.149 sources suggest the real pressure cooker moment 00:09:57.149 --> 00:09:59.370 came when she wrote her first published philosophical 00:09:59.370 --> 00:10:01.690 work, the conduct book, Thoughts on the Education 00:10:01.690 --> 00:10:04.070 of Daughters. That's where the frustration really 00:10:04.070 --> 00:10:06.350 becomes formalized argument. Absolutely. The 00:10:06.350 --> 00:10:09.110 book is on the surface a guide. But within it, 00:10:09.149 --> 00:10:12.309 she provides this devastatingly eloquent protest 00:10:12.309 --> 00:10:15.210 against female limitation. There's a whole chapter 00:10:15.210 --> 00:10:18.370 titled Unfortunate Situation of Females, Fashionably 00:10:18.370 --> 00:10:21.370 Educated and Left Without a Fortune. She's describing 00:10:21.370 --> 00:10:24.669 her own life. She is articulating precisely the 00:10:24.669 --> 00:10:27.450 economic trap she was living in, being trained 00:10:27.450 --> 00:10:30.549 for superficiality but denied the tools to survive 00:10:30.549 --> 00:10:34.470 when your female accomplishments fail to land 00:10:34.470 --> 00:10:37.570 you a husband or a living. And that moment where 00:10:37.570 --> 00:10:40.009 her personal frustration meets public critique, 00:10:40.289 --> 00:10:44.169 that seems to be the pivot point. In 1787, she 00:10:44.169 --> 00:10:46.190 makes a decision that defines her whole career. 00:10:46.370 --> 00:10:49.090 It was an audacious choice, almost suicidal for 00:10:49.090 --> 00:10:51.409 a woman of her class at the time. She decided 00:10:51.409 --> 00:10:53.809 to move to London and become a professional author. 00:10:54.029 --> 00:10:56.570 To achieve financial independence solely through 00:10:56.570 --> 00:10:58.509 her writing. Through intellectual labor, yes. 00:10:59.070 --> 00:11:02.070 She articulated this ambition so clearly to her 00:11:02.070 --> 00:11:04.669 sister, Everina, writing that she intended to 00:11:04.669 --> 00:11:07.750 become The first of a new genus. The first of 00:11:07.750 --> 00:11:10.230 a new genus. That's such a powerful phrase. It's 00:11:10.230 --> 00:11:12.690 a declaration. She's not just aiming for personal 00:11:12.690 --> 00:11:15.350 success. She's creating an entirely new category 00:11:15.350 --> 00:11:18.009 of professional identity for women. And this 00:11:18.009 --> 00:11:20.429 transformation was really only possible because 00:11:20.429 --> 00:11:22.389 of the support of one man, right? The liberal 00:11:22.389 --> 00:11:24.730 publisher Joseph Johnson. He was her anchor. 00:11:25.100 --> 00:11:27.940 He became her mentor, her employer, her friend. 00:11:28.179 --> 00:11:30.320 She referred to him in her letters with immense 00:11:30.320 --> 00:11:32.919 affection, calling him a father and a brother. 00:11:33.100 --> 00:11:35.559 It was a kind of familial trust she had really 00:11:35.559 --> 00:11:38.700 lacked in her life. So what exactly was her intellectual 00:11:38.700 --> 00:11:41.320 labor during this period before the vindications? 00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:43.720 She wasn't just sitting down to write masterpieces 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:46.600 from scratch. No, she was building her intellectual 00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:49.909 arsenal. Johnson hired her to translate French 00:11:49.909 --> 00:11:52.830 and German texts, which forced her to engage 00:11:52.830 --> 00:11:56.110 rigorously with major continental thinkers. Like 00:11:56.110 --> 00:11:59.210 who? For instance, she translated Jacques Necker's 00:11:59.210 --> 00:12:01.789 Of the Importance of Religious Opinions and Christian 00:12:01.789 --> 00:12:05.100 Godhill Salsman's Elements of Morality. This 00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:07.559 work exposed her to all this diverse European 00:12:07.559 --> 00:12:10.100 thought on religion, morality, and education, 00:12:10.399 --> 00:12:13.080 which deeply informed her later work. And crucially, 00:12:13.139 --> 00:12:15.840 she was also reviewing novels for Johnson's influential 00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:19.240 periodical, The Analytical Review. This was indispensable 00:12:19.240 --> 00:12:22.139 training for her. Reviewing novels, especially 00:12:22.139 --> 00:12:24.019 the popular contact literature and sentimental 00:12:24.019 --> 00:12:26.639 fiction of the day, it allowed her to systematically 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:29.320 dissect and critique the very literature that 00:12:29.320 --> 00:12:31.730 she believed was corrupting women's minds. So 00:12:31.730 --> 00:12:33.789 she was getting firsthand knowledge of the culture 00:12:33.789 --> 00:12:35.889 she was fighting against. Hundreds of examples 00:12:35.889 --> 00:12:38.909 of the excessive sensibility she would later 00:12:38.909 --> 00:12:41.669 condemn. And it was at Johnson's famous intellectual 00:12:41.669 --> 00:12:44.789 dinners that she met the most radical minds of 00:12:44.789 --> 00:12:47.129 the time. People like Thomas Paine, author of 00:12:47.129 --> 00:12:49.750 Rights of Man, and eventually her future husband, 00:12:49.950 --> 00:12:52.789 William Godwin. Johnson's dinners were the epicenter 00:12:52.789 --> 00:12:55.659 of radical dissent in London. She was immersed 00:12:55.659 --> 00:12:58.179 in the debates defining the era, republicanism, 00:12:58.299 --> 00:13:01.600 skepticism, social reform. And her first meeting 00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:03.559 with William Godwin is a classic story because 00:13:03.559 --> 00:13:07.200 it was so, well, volatile. It was. Godwin came 00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:10.159 hoping to hear Thomas Paine speak, but Wollstonecraft 00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:13.259 just dominated the conversation. How did she 00:13:13.259 --> 00:13:16.320 manage to assail the leading philosopher of the 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:18.720 era? The report is that she just disagreed with 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:21.629 him on virtually every subject. monopolized the 00:13:21.629 --> 00:13:23.610 conversation to the point that Godwin was deeply 00:13:23.610 --> 00:13:25.850 frustrated and disappointed. It really illustrates 00:13:25.850 --> 00:13:28.230 her argumentative style. She didn't defer to 00:13:28.230 --> 00:13:31.529 reputation or gender. Not at all. She was intensely 00:13:31.529 --> 00:13:34.830 rational, aggressive in debate. She likely challenged 00:13:34.830 --> 00:13:37.049 Godwin on his abstract theoretical principles 00:13:37.049 --> 00:13:39.850 versus their real world application. A critique 00:13:39.850 --> 00:13:41.850 she often leveled at male enlightenment thinkers 00:13:41.850 --> 00:13:44.350 who, you know, tended to forget the plight of 00:13:44.350 --> 00:13:47.009 women. A woman who won't shut up debating her 00:13:47.009 --> 00:13:49.629 future husband until he's furious. That's a powerful 00:13:49.629 --> 00:13:52.429 start. It was, ironically, the perfect preparation 00:13:52.429 --> 00:13:55.029 for her next world -changing intellectual intervention. 00:13:55.289 --> 00:13:57.590 The stage was perfectly set by her translation 00:13:57.590 --> 00:14:00.289 work, her reviews, her immersion in Johnson's 00:14:00.289 --> 00:14:02.750 radical circle. And the first result of all this 00:14:02.750 --> 00:14:06.289 was a vindication of the rights of men in 1790. 00:14:06.549 --> 00:14:08.909 And this wasn't a slow scholarly release. It 00:14:08.909 --> 00:14:10.990 was, as you said, a political hand grenade. The 00:14:10.990 --> 00:14:13.190 context here is everything. This was a direct, 00:14:13.309 --> 00:14:16.350 immediate, and fiery rebuttal to Edmund Burke's 00:14:16.350 --> 00:14:19.350 huge conservative manifesto, Reflections on the 00:14:19.350 --> 00:14:21.679 Revolution. in France. Burke's reflections came 00:14:21.679 --> 00:14:25.059 out in early November 1790. It defended aristocracy, 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:27.679 monarchy, tradition. It was basically a massive 00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:30.379 argument against the French Revolution. Wollstonecraft 00:14:30.379 --> 00:14:32.620 found his conservatism morally reprehensible 00:14:32.620 --> 00:14:35.519 and his language just manipulative. So she wrote 00:14:35.519 --> 00:14:38.000 her rebuttal in a matter of weeks. Weeks. She 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:40.600 got it published anonymously on November 29th. 00:14:40.620 --> 00:14:43.799 And it made her famous overnight. When her name 00:14:43.799 --> 00:14:46.120 was revealed in the second edition, just a few 00:14:46.120 --> 00:14:48.860 weeks later, she was suddenly a major intellectual 00:14:48.860 --> 00:14:52.519 player. What made her critique of Burke so devastating? 00:14:53.019 --> 00:14:55.779 It wasn't just a political disagreement. It was 00:14:55.779 --> 00:14:58.659 a rhetorical takedown. Burke had gone on and 00:14:58.659 --> 00:15:01.580 on with this theatrical pity for Queen Marie 00:15:01.580 --> 00:15:04.539 Antoinette, describing her as a vision of beauty 00:15:04.539 --> 00:15:07.440 and elegance. And he used that language to condemn 00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:09.679 the revolutionaries. Yes, he called the women 00:15:09.679 --> 00:15:12.730 who marched on Versailles furies from hell. And 00:15:12.730 --> 00:15:14.750 she flipped that aristocratic script entirely, 00:15:15.090 --> 00:15:17.830 didn't she? Completely. Wollstonecraft accused 00:15:17.830 --> 00:15:20.029 Burke of prioritizing superficial appearance 00:15:20.029 --> 00:15:22.730 and sentimental feeling over justice and reason. 00:15:22.909 --> 00:15:25.350 She defended the marching women not as Furies, 00:15:25.429 --> 00:15:28.350 but as ordinary, uneducated housewives who were 00:15:28.350 --> 00:15:30.330 desperate and angry because they lacked bread 00:15:30.330 --> 00:15:32.809 for their children. She reframed their passion 00:15:32.809 --> 00:15:36.360 as righteous economic fury, not madness. And 00:15:36.360 --> 00:15:38.539 the most profound intellectual strategy was how 00:15:38.539 --> 00:15:41.059 she used Burke's own aesthetic terminology against 00:15:41.059 --> 00:15:44.179 him. This idea of the sublime versus the beautiful. 00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:46.779 This is where she truly earns her title as a 00:15:46.779 --> 00:15:49.600 philosopher. Burke had associated the sublime 00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:52.940 with masculine qualities, strength, grandeur, 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:56.539 terror, and the beautiful with feminine weakness, 00:15:56.919 --> 00:16:00.279 softness, superficial charm. And she turned that 00:16:00.279 --> 00:16:02.620 on its head. She argued that Burke's sentimental 00:16:02.620 --> 00:16:05.360 flowing language, his excessive descriptions 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:08.080 of royal beauty, actually turned his own readers 00:16:08.080 --> 00:16:11.679 into weak women swayed by show because it appealed 00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:14.139 to their senses, not their intellect. So she's 00:16:14.139 --> 00:16:16.519 basically arguing that Burke's conservatism was 00:16:16.519 --> 00:16:19.279 aesthetically effeminate and therefore irrational 00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:22.019 and weak. Exactly. She stripped the nobility 00:16:22.019 --> 00:16:24.649 of their moral and intellectual authority. Her 00:16:24.649 --> 00:16:26.629 political argument was fundamentally an attack 00:16:26.629 --> 00:16:29.389 on aristocracy and a defense of middle class 00:16:29.389 --> 00:16:32.110 virtue. She argued that true virtue rationality 00:16:32.110 --> 00:16:34.009 industry resided in the middle classes. And she 00:16:34.009 --> 00:16:36.470 contrasted that with the vice written aristocratic 00:16:36.470 --> 00:16:38.889 code. She positioned reason against tradition, 00:16:39.129 --> 00:16:42.149 showing the danger of relying purely on ancestral 00:16:42.149 --> 00:16:45.129 custom. She did this brilliantly. She pointed 00:16:45.129 --> 00:16:47.029 out the logical conclusion of Burke's argument. 00:16:47.690 --> 00:16:50.230 If tradition is the only virtue, then it would 00:16:50.230 --> 00:16:52.389 logically endorse the continuation of slavery 00:16:52.389 --> 00:16:55.029 simply because it was an ancestral custom. It's 00:16:55.029 --> 00:16:57.889 a killing argument. It is. And her argument for 00:16:57.889 --> 00:17:00.710 natural, universal rights, founded on reason, 00:17:00.889 --> 00:17:03.590 provided the perfect intellectual groundwork 00:17:03.590 --> 00:17:06.109 for her next major work. She had established 00:17:06.109 --> 00:17:08.950 inequality as the enemy. Now she turned that 00:17:08.950 --> 00:17:11.390 focus toward the most pervasive inequality she 00:17:11.390 --> 00:17:14.759 knew, gender. Which brings us to the monumental 00:17:14.759 --> 00:17:17.779 work, two years later, A Vindication of the Rights 00:17:17.779 --> 00:17:20.420 of Women. This is arguably the foundational text 00:17:20.420 --> 00:17:23.759 of liberal feminism. What's the core non -negotiable 00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:26.279 thesis? The core thesis is a radical declaration. 00:17:26.740 --> 00:17:29.480 Women are not naturally or biologically inferior 00:17:29.480 --> 00:17:32.119 to men. They only appear so because they are 00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:35.039 systematically denied a rational education and 00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:37.299 are conditioned by society to be weak. So she's 00:17:37.299 --> 00:17:40.000 calling for a sweeping social reform. A total 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:42.579 overhaul where both sexes would be treated as 00:17:42.579 --> 00:17:45.279 rational beings capable of moral and intellectual 00:17:45.279 --> 00:17:47.640 self -governance. And this required a wholesale 00:17:47.640 --> 00:17:50.420 attack on the literature and the philosophical 00:17:50.420 --> 00:17:52.900 figures who perpetuated this conditioning. Oh, 00:17:52.920 --> 00:17:55.180 she went after everyone. Enlightenment thinkers 00:17:55.180 --> 00:17:57.740 like Rousseau, who famously argued that women 00:17:57.740 --> 00:18:00.440 should be educated solely to please men. And 00:18:00.440 --> 00:18:02.640 she just skewered the popular conduct literature 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:05.480 of the time, the manuals by writers like James 00:18:05.480 --> 00:18:07.859 Fordyce and John Gregory. The ones that instructed 00:18:07.859 --> 00:18:10.839 women on how to be charming and delicate. Exactly. 00:18:10.980 --> 00:18:14.119 How to maintain delicate manners, cultivate physical 00:18:14.119 --> 00:18:16.680 charm, practice superficial accomplishments. 00:18:17.180 --> 00:18:19.920 Why was that critique so important? Why was teaching 00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:22.759 women to be charming so dangerous to society, 00:18:22.920 --> 00:18:25.759 in her view? She saw it as completely destructive. 00:18:26.460 --> 00:18:28.759 If women are taught that their primary value 00:18:28.759 --> 00:18:31.519 and power, their scepter, as she calls it, comes 00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:33.599 only from their physical beauty, they'll never 00:18:33.599 --> 00:18:35.660 develop their minds. And the sources capture 00:18:35.660 --> 00:18:38.099 this perfectly in her famous metaphor, the guilt 00:18:38.099 --> 00:18:41.000 cage. Let's unpack the guilt cage metaphor. It's 00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:43.180 one of the most powerful images in Western philosophy. 00:18:43.440 --> 00:18:46.539 It speaks volumes about the trap of female socialization. 00:18:47.019 --> 00:18:49.880 She describes women as being taught from their 00:18:49.880 --> 00:18:53.690 infancy that beauty is women's scepter. That's 00:18:53.690 --> 00:18:56.210 their only power source. So the mind just shapes 00:18:56.210 --> 00:18:59.009 itself to the body. Precisely. Their intellect 00:18:59.009 --> 00:19:01.109 only serves to enhance their appearance rather 00:19:01.109 --> 00:19:03.809 than cultivate virtue. They become creatures 00:19:03.809 --> 00:19:07.269 roaming around its guilt cage, only seeking to 00:19:07.269 --> 00:19:10.170 adorn its prison. The prison is marriage, dependency, 00:19:10.609 --> 00:19:13.410 intellectual confinement. The guilt is the beauty 00:19:13.410 --> 00:19:15.170 that distracts them from the reality of their 00:19:15.170 --> 00:19:17.750 captivity. Their entire existence is reduced 00:19:17.750 --> 00:19:19.829 to decorating the space they are trapped in. 00:19:20.079 --> 00:19:22.000 rather than figuring out how to leave the cage. 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:24.440 It's a devastating indictment of beauty culture. 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:27.420 And this led her to propose a solution that was 00:19:27.420 --> 00:19:31.119 equally radical, a specific, detailed plan for 00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:33.720 education. Yes, laid out in Chapter 12 on national 00:19:33.720 --> 00:19:36.640 education. This moves beyond abstract theory 00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:38.740 into practical policy. What does she advocate 00:19:38.740 --> 00:19:41.619 for? She envisioned a national, state -funded 00:19:41.619 --> 00:19:45.339 system. All children, boys and girls, would attend 00:19:45.339 --> 00:19:48.079 a country day school up to the age of nine. They'd 00:19:48.079 --> 00:19:50.299 also get home education to maintain family bonds. 00:19:50.900 --> 00:19:53.279 But the most revolutionary aspect of this plan 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:56.200 was its design. It had to be coeducational. It 00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:59.519 had to be, which was virtually unheard of for 00:19:59.519 --> 00:20:02.000 the upper and middle classes. Why was coeducation 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:04.799 non -negotiable for her? She argued that men 00:20:04.799 --> 00:20:07.140 and women, whose marriages are the cement of 00:20:07.140 --> 00:20:09.559 society, must be educated after the same model. 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:12.500 If they're educated separately, they grow up 00:20:12.500 --> 00:20:14.900 with fundamentally different expectations. They 00:20:14.900 --> 00:20:16.799 become incapable of being rational companions. 00:20:17.140 --> 00:20:19.519 They become strangers to each other. Resulting 00:20:19.519 --> 00:20:21.779 in marriages based on power and appearance, not 00:20:21.779 --> 00:20:24.279 mutual respect. She wanted men and women to be 00:20:24.279 --> 00:20:27.440 friends, colleagues, intellectual equals. But 00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:29.720 if we're trying to classify her fairly, we have 00:20:29.720 --> 00:20:31.740 to look at the nuances of who this plan served. 00:20:32.410 --> 00:20:34.990 The sources are clear that her focus, while radical, 00:20:35.230 --> 00:20:37.710 was distinctly middle class. That's a crucial 00:20:37.710 --> 00:20:39.890 historical distinction for you, the learner. 00:20:40.269 --> 00:20:43.150 She explicitly addresses her text to the middle 00:20:43.150 --> 00:20:45.730 class, which she calls the most natural state. 00:20:46.130 --> 00:20:49.150 She argues virtues like modesty and industry 00:20:49.150 --> 00:20:51.509 are best found there. And the education plan 00:20:51.509 --> 00:20:54.410 reflects that. It does. She suggests that after 00:20:54.410 --> 00:20:57.710 age nine, poor children, with the exception of 00:20:57.710 --> 00:20:59.930 the brilliant ones, should be separated and taught 00:20:59.930 --> 00:21:03.140 elsewhere. It shows her worldview, while revolutionary 00:21:03.140 --> 00:21:06.900 on gender, still retain a clear class based structure. 00:21:07.079 --> 00:21:09.339 Another core argument that complicates things 00:21:09.339 --> 00:21:12.740 is her scathing attack on excessive sentimentality 00:21:12.740 --> 00:21:15.599 or sensibility. She viewed false and excessive 00:21:15.599 --> 00:21:19.039 sensibility. this tendency toward dramatic uncontrolled 00:21:19.039 --> 00:21:21.680 emotionality as an intellectual and moral disease. 00:21:22.099 --> 00:21:24.700 She was arguing against the cultural tide which 00:21:24.700 --> 00:21:27.299 celebrated women's delicate, fragile emotions. 00:21:27.619 --> 00:21:30.079 She said they were blown about by every momentary 00:21:30.079 --> 00:21:32.400 gust of feeling. Yes, and the prey of their senses, 00:21:32.619 --> 00:21:34.920 which makes them completely incapable of rational 00:21:34.920 --> 00:21:37.630 thought or consistent moral action. So the woman 00:21:37.630 --> 00:21:39.970 who would later be called reckless by her critics 00:21:39.970 --> 00:21:42.109 for her own passions was arguing for absolute 00:21:42.109 --> 00:21:45.170 rational control. Absolutely. She believed that 00:21:45.170 --> 00:21:47.730 this indulgence in feeling, often fostered by 00:21:47.730 --> 00:21:50.329 reading sentimental novels, made women useless. 00:21:50.650 --> 00:21:53.390 If women are irrational, they can't help refine 00:21:53.390 --> 00:21:57.029 or stabilize civilization itself. For her, reason 00:21:57.029 --> 00:22:00.130 was the only path to virtue. Finally, let's address 00:22:00.130 --> 00:22:02.529 the equality debate, because modern readers often 00:22:02.529 --> 00:22:05.150 try to retroactively fit her into a modern feminist 00:22:05.150 --> 00:22:08.529 box, but her text doesn't always comply. It's 00:22:08.529 --> 00:22:10.769 ambiguous, and we have to acknowledge that. She 00:22:10.769 --> 00:22:12.569 certainly championed equality in fundamental 00:22:12.569 --> 00:22:15.589 areas like morality. Both sexes were equal in 00:22:15.589 --> 00:22:18.170 the eyes of God, deserved the same rational respect. 00:22:18.410 --> 00:22:21.089 But she did not declare men and women equal in 00:22:21.089 --> 00:22:23.130 every physical or perhaps even psychological 00:22:23.130 --> 00:22:26.380 capacity. The sources quote her writing. I have 00:22:26.380 --> 00:22:28.500 already granted that from the constitution of 00:22:28.500 --> 00:22:31.160 their bodies, men seem to be designed by providence 00:22:31.160 --> 00:22:33.660 to attain a greater degree of virtue. That is 00:22:33.660 --> 00:22:36.039 a significant concession. She seems to be granting 00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:38.579 men a greater capacity for physical valor, maybe, 00:22:38.680 --> 00:22:40.980 but arguing that this physical difference is 00:22:40.980 --> 00:22:42.859 irrelevant to their core moral and intellectual 00:22:42.859 --> 00:22:45.180 rights. That's the most logical interpretation. 00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:49.240 She prioritized reason and moral duty above all. 00:22:49.519 --> 00:22:52.720 If men have a stronger body, Fine, let them go 00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:55.319 to war. It has no bearing on a woman's right 00:22:55.319 --> 00:22:58.339 to education, economic self -sufficiency, or 00:22:58.339 --> 00:23:00.920 rational judgment. So her overall demand, despite 00:23:00.920 --> 00:23:03.579 these nuances, was singular. Women must be treated 00:23:03.579 --> 00:23:06.240 as human beings first, not merely as ornamental 00:23:06.240 --> 00:23:08.279 appendages to men. After publishing The Rights 00:23:08.279 --> 00:23:10.619 of Woman, which was an immediate global sensation, 00:23:11.460 --> 00:23:13.980 Wollstonecraft decides to move from theory to 00:23:13.980 --> 00:23:16.740 action. She does. She travels to Paris in December 00:23:16.740 --> 00:23:21.160 1792. just a month before Louis VI was guillotined. 00:23:21.460 --> 00:23:23.880 She was determined to be a firsthand witness 00:23:23.880 --> 00:23:25.980 to the revolution she had celebrated on paper. 00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:28.220 That strikes me as incredibly dangerous, almost 00:23:28.220 --> 00:23:30.660 recklessly idealistic. Britain and France were 00:23:30.660 --> 00:23:32.779 on the verge of war. She was advised strongly 00:23:32.779 --> 00:23:35.509 not to go. But she was just driven by this commitment 00:23:35.509 --> 00:23:37.890 to liberty. She arrived just as the revolution 00:23:37.890 --> 00:23:40.329 was spiraling into violence. And she associated 00:23:40.329 --> 00:23:42.190 mainly with the moderate faction, the Jerome 00:23:42.190 --> 00:23:44.349 Downs. Which put her immediately at odds with 00:23:44.349 --> 00:23:47.130 the radical Jacobins. Yes, the ruthless, increasingly 00:23:47.130 --> 00:23:50.250 powerful faction. And despite celebrating the 00:23:50.250 --> 00:23:52.869 abstract revolution, her personal observation 00:23:52.869 --> 00:23:55.650 of the violence was emotionally complex. Very 00:23:55.650 --> 00:23:58.430 much so. She witnessed Louis VI being taken to 00:23:58.430 --> 00:24:00.910 trial. And she was surprised by her own reaction, 00:24:01.170 --> 00:24:04.369 writing that The tears flowed insensibly from 00:24:04.369 --> 00:24:07.410 my eyes. She noted the unexpected dignity of 00:24:07.410 --> 00:24:10.289 the deposed king. It shows this profound tension 00:24:10.289 --> 00:24:13.509 between her republican ideals and the chilling 00:24:13.509 --> 00:24:15.950 reality of revolutionary bloodshed. And when 00:24:15.950 --> 00:24:19.029 France declared war on Britain in February 1793, 00:24:19.430 --> 00:24:23.029 life for British subjects became, well, nightmarish. 00:24:23.069 --> 00:24:24.970 She was trapped. Foreigners were placed under 00:24:24.970 --> 00:24:26.809 strict police surveillance, forbidden to leave. 00:24:27.119 --> 00:24:29.500 The reign of terror led by the Jacobins began 00:24:29.500 --> 00:24:32.019 in earnest. Friends she knew were being guillotined. 00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:34.200 It must have been terrifying. The sources show 00:24:34.200 --> 00:24:36.500 she was glad she came to gain a just opinion 00:24:36.500 --> 00:24:38.799 of the extraordinary event. But she confessed 00:24:38.799 --> 00:24:41.160 that death and misery and every shape of terror 00:24:41.160 --> 00:24:44.119 haunts this devoted country. It was in this atmosphere 00:24:44.119 --> 00:24:46.660 of extreme danger that she met Gilbert Imlay 00:24:46.660 --> 00:24:48.960 and her principles regarding marriage were put 00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:51.400 to the ultimate test. She fell passionately in 00:24:51.400 --> 00:24:53.940 love with Imlay, an American adventurer and merchant. 00:24:54.519 --> 00:24:57.119 And she decided to live with him. have a physical 00:24:57.119 --> 00:25:00.960 relationship without being married. She saw it 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:03.740 as an embodiment of the rational free union she 00:25:03.740 --> 00:25:06.660 advocated for. But ironically, the relationship 00:25:06.660 --> 00:25:09.039 she chose to protect her anti -marriage principles 00:25:09.039 --> 00:25:11.740 ended up providing her only means of political 00:25:11.740 --> 00:25:15.240 survival. It's a huge irony. Imlay was an American 00:25:15.240 --> 00:25:18.789 and a bit of a profiteer. To protect Wollstonecraft 00:25:18.789 --> 00:25:21.349 from arrest as a hostile British subject during 00:25:21.349 --> 00:25:23.789 the terror, he made a false declaration to the 00:25:23.789 --> 00:25:25.970 U .S. Embassy that they were married. Which made 00:25:25.970 --> 00:25:28.589 her an American citizen. And protected her from 00:25:28.589 --> 00:25:30.710 the guillotine. But the personal cost was high. 00:25:30.930 --> 00:25:33.049 Her disillusionment with the revolution continued 00:25:33.049 --> 00:25:35.769 to deepen. She still held on to hope for a fairer 00:25:35.769 --> 00:25:38.109 day, but she saw that even under the Republic, 00:25:38.289 --> 00:25:41.210 people behaved slavishly. The new French government 00:25:41.210 --> 00:25:44.769 proved to be venal and brutal. She was particularly 00:25:44.769 --> 00:25:47.309 offended when the Jacobins actively denied women 00:25:47.309 --> 00:25:50.390 equal political rights, denounced Amazons, and 00:25:50.390 --> 00:25:52.670 pushed women back into the limited domestic roles 00:25:52.670 --> 00:25:55.289 advocated by Rousseau. So she saw the revolution 00:25:55.289 --> 00:25:58.410 failing women specifically. And her historical 00:25:58.410 --> 00:26:00.589 writing on Marie Antoinette at the time reflects 00:26:00.589 --> 00:26:03.890 this complexity. While pregnant, she wrote an 00:26:03.890 --> 00:26:06.069 historical and moral view of the French Revolution. 00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:09.640 It's a neglected masterpiece, where she argues 00:26:09.640 --> 00:26:12.119 the revolution arose from profound social and 00:26:12.119 --> 00:26:15.599 economic conditions, not madness. But in this 00:26:15.599 --> 00:26:18.160 work, she gives a devastating critique of Marie 00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:20.799 Antoinette, which contrasts so sharply with Burke's 00:26:20.799 --> 00:26:23.680 idealized victim. She saw Marie Antoinette as 00:26:23.680 --> 00:26:27.240 a manipulative femme fatale, a corrupting product 00:26:27.240 --> 00:26:30.410 of the ancient regime. Wollstonecraft argued 00:26:30.410 --> 00:26:32.970 that aristocratic society valued the queen only 00:26:32.970 --> 00:26:35.890 for her body, her ability to bear sons, reducing 00:26:35.890 --> 00:26:38.390 her worth entirely to her womb, and that this 00:26:38.390 --> 00:26:40.250 environment encouraged her to become ruthless 00:26:40.250 --> 00:26:42.710 and manipulative to exert any power at all. It's 00:26:42.710 --> 00:26:45.109 a powerful sociological argument. The system 00:26:45.109 --> 00:26:46.930 corrupted the queen just as it corrupted the 00:26:46.930 --> 00:26:49.029 housewife. And she was deeply troubled by the 00:26:49.029 --> 00:26:51.309 specific charges leveled against the queen. The 00:26:51.309 --> 00:26:54.569 incest charge. Yes. She was appalled that the 00:26:54.569 --> 00:26:56.930 infamous incest charge against Marie Antoinette 00:26:56.930 --> 00:26:59.470 was made central to the case. Wollstonecraft 00:26:59.470 --> 00:27:02.369 argued this focus on sexual perversion was degrading 00:27:02.369 --> 00:27:05.490 and a cynical use of misogyny to condemn a political 00:27:05.490 --> 00:27:07.750 enemy. It showed her the new republic could be 00:27:07.750 --> 00:27:10.569 just as morally depraved as the monarchy it replaced. 00:27:11.289 --> 00:27:13.430 Tragically, her personal life began to mirror 00:27:13.430 --> 00:27:16.680 the political chaos. Imlay, unhappy with domestic 00:27:16.680 --> 00:27:18.660 life after the birth of their daughter Fanny, 00:27:18.819 --> 00:27:21.799 started to pull away. She was initially ecstatic 00:27:21.799 --> 00:27:24.380 about Fanny. She wrote that the baby would suckle 00:27:24.380 --> 00:27:27.359 so manfully that her father reckoned saucily 00:27:27.359 --> 00:27:29.220 on her writing the second part of The Rites of 00:27:29.220 --> 00:27:32.380 Woman. But Imlay was an adventurer. He was dissatisfied 00:27:32.380 --> 00:27:34.900 with the domestic -minded and maternal Wollstonecraft. 00:27:35.259 --> 00:27:37.789 He left for London. He did. and his rejection 00:27:37.789 --> 00:27:40.569 became painfully clear. This pushed her to the 00:27:40.569 --> 00:27:43.309 edge, leading to two catastrophic suicide attempts. 00:27:43.569 --> 00:27:46.990 The first was in May 1795. After she followed 00:27:46.990 --> 00:27:49.490 him to London and faced his coldness. She likely 00:27:49.490 --> 00:27:51.470 attempted suicide with laudanum, though Imel 00:27:51.470 --> 00:27:53.650 managed to save her. And in a last desperate 00:27:53.650 --> 00:27:56.250 attempt to hold on to him, she undertook this 00:27:56.250 --> 00:27:59.130 hazardous business negotiation for him in Scandinavia. 00:27:59.349 --> 00:28:03.000 A solo trip. across dangerous waters with only 00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:05.779 her infant daughter and a maid to recover his 00:28:05.779 --> 00:28:09.160 fortune from a Norwegian captain. It shows both 00:28:09.160 --> 00:28:11.940 her profound desperation and her incredible competence. 00:28:12.299 --> 00:28:15.759 But it wasn't enough. No. Upon her return, when 00:28:15.759 --> 00:28:18.039 she realized the relationship was irrevocably 00:28:18.039 --> 00:28:20.720 over, she made her second attempt. She left a 00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:23.140 note declaring the attempt one of the calmest 00:28:23.140 --> 00:28:25.809 acts of reason. before walking through the rain 00:28:25.809 --> 00:28:28.170 to soak her clothes and jumping into the Thames. 00:28:28.250 --> 00:28:30.470 He was rescued. Rescued by a stranger. Let's 00:28:30.470 --> 00:28:32.789 stop on that shilling phrase. One of the calmest 00:28:32.789 --> 00:28:36.190 acts of reason. It just encapsulates the painful 00:28:36.190 --> 00:28:38.769 duality of her mind. It's the ultimate paradox. 00:28:39.170 --> 00:28:42.150 For Wollstonecraft, whose entire philosophy hinged 00:28:42.150 --> 00:28:44.309 on reason as the path to virtue and freedom, 00:28:44.569 --> 00:28:46.849 this note suggests that the pain and humiliation 00:28:46.849 --> 00:28:49.730 she faced were so absolute that survival itself 00:28:49.730 --> 00:28:52.480 had become an irrational act. The rational choice 00:28:52.480 --> 00:28:55.559 in the face of such destruction was to end the 00:28:55.559 --> 00:28:57.880 misery. It's the life experience that stands 00:28:57.880 --> 00:29:00.119 in the starkest opposition to the arguments of 00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:02.460 her vindications. But she survived, returned 00:29:02.460 --> 00:29:05.420 to Joseph Johnson's radical circle, and reconnected 00:29:05.420 --> 00:29:07.660 with William Godwin. The connection was sparked 00:29:07.660 --> 00:29:10.819 by her travelogue. Godwin was completely captivated 00:29:10.819 --> 00:29:13.180 by her letters written in Sweden, calling it 00:29:13.180 --> 00:29:15.720 the book calculated to make a man in love with 00:29:15.720 --> 00:29:18.359 its author. The passion was immediate. Intense. 00:29:18.890 --> 00:29:21.210 And when she became pregnant again, they married 00:29:21.210 --> 00:29:24.210 in March 1797. Which must have been a highly 00:29:24.210 --> 00:29:26.150 controversial choice for both of them, given 00:29:26.150 --> 00:29:29.269 their philosophies. Massively so. Godwin was 00:29:29.269 --> 00:29:31.269 famous for advocating the complete abolition 00:29:31.269 --> 00:29:34.250 of marriage in his masterpiece Political Justice. 00:29:34.890 --> 00:29:37.630 To marry was seen as a betrayal of their radical 00:29:37.630 --> 00:29:39.970 principles. And the marriage revealed that she 00:29:39.970 --> 00:29:42.670 had never been legally married to Imlay. Which 00:29:42.670 --> 00:29:45.089 meant her first daughter, Fanny, was illegitimate. 00:29:45.269 --> 00:29:48.410 This cost them many friends. Yet, despite the 00:29:48.410 --> 00:29:50.670 controversy, they seemed to find a brief moment 00:29:50.670 --> 00:29:53.769 of stable happiness. They did. They lived 20 00:29:53.769 --> 00:29:55.950 doors apart in Summerstown, maintaining separate 00:29:55.950 --> 00:29:58.250 residences to ensure their intellectual independence. 00:29:58.710 --> 00:30:02.509 It was a stable, content period, but devastatingly 00:30:02.509 --> 00:30:05.990 short. Because in August 1797, she gave birth 00:30:05.990 --> 00:30:08.329 to her second daughter, Mary, who would become 00:30:08.329 --> 00:30:11.990 Mary Shelley. Yes. Tragically, she died just 00:30:11.990 --> 00:30:15.009 11 days later from septicemia, or childbed fever. 00:30:15.500 --> 00:30:18.779 It was a common, brutal fate caused by an infected 00:30:18.779 --> 00:30:22.200 piece of placenta. She died, ironically, while 00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:25.160 finally experiencing the stable, rational domesticity 00:30:25.160 --> 00:30:27.319 she had fought for. If we look at the entire 00:30:27.319 --> 00:30:29.859 scope of her bibliography, it's clear that every 00:30:29.859 --> 00:30:31.920 single work from her children's stories to her 00:30:31.920 --> 00:30:34.420 treatises was driven by her core convictions 00:30:34.420 --> 00:30:37.339 about education. And the failure of society to 00:30:37.339 --> 00:30:39.339 provide women with the rational tools necessary 00:30:39.339 --> 00:30:42.839 for survival. Her early educational works like 00:30:43.130 --> 00:30:45.329 thoughts on the education of daughters, reflected 00:30:45.329 --> 00:30:48.029 this emerging middle -class ethos that valued 00:30:48.029 --> 00:30:50.569 self -discipline and frugality. She was deeply 00:30:50.569 --> 00:30:52.769 influenced by John Locke, but she added her own 00:30:52.769 --> 00:30:56.009 spin. She did. She integrated Locke's views on 00:30:56.009 --> 00:30:58.509 teaching children to reason with a focus on religious 00:30:58.509 --> 00:31:01.609 faith and innate feeling. She was actively trying 00:31:01.609 --> 00:31:04.450 to construct a balanced model, a rational mind 00:31:04.450 --> 00:31:07.049 informed by moral sentiment, to counteract the 00:31:07.049 --> 00:31:09.250 excesses of pure sensibility she saw destroying 00:31:09.250 --> 00:31:12.309 women's lives. And her novels marry. A fiction 00:31:12.309 --> 00:31:15.190 and the posthumously published Maria, or The 00:31:15.190 --> 00:31:17.769 Wrongs of Woman, served as fictionalized critiques 00:31:17.769 --> 00:31:20.910 of marriage and sensibility. In Mary, a fiction, 00:31:21.069 --> 00:31:23.369 the heroine is forced into a loveless, purely 00:31:23.369 --> 00:31:26.369 economic marriage, a theme taken directly from 00:31:26.369 --> 00:31:28.809 her own life. And she finds fulfillment instead 00:31:28.809 --> 00:31:31.769 in passionate friendships outside of marriage. 00:31:32.009 --> 00:31:34.250 A radical proposition for the time. And Maria, 00:31:34.410 --> 00:31:36.390 often considered her most politically radical 00:31:36.390 --> 00:31:39.710 novel, goes even further. How so? In Maria, The 00:31:39.710 --> 00:31:42.170 heroine is cruelly imprisoned in an asylum by 00:31:42.170 --> 00:31:44.769 her husband, symbolizing the complete legal confinement 00:31:44.769 --> 00:31:48.589 of women under patriarchal law. Maria finds solace 00:31:48.589 --> 00:31:50.670 and fulfillment not just with a male inmate, 00:31:50.690 --> 00:31:53.450 but most significantly through a deepening friendship 00:31:53.450 --> 00:31:56.589 with her female keeper, Jemima. And Jemima is 00:31:56.589 --> 00:31:59.930 working class. Exactly. This hints at an early 00:31:59.930 --> 00:32:02.609 cross -class feminist argument. That women of 00:32:02.609 --> 00:32:04.670 different economic positions share the same fundamental 00:32:04.670 --> 00:32:07.369 interests. And face the same dangers from patriarchal 00:32:07.369 --> 00:32:10.259 systems. Both novels function as literary critiques 00:32:10.259 --> 00:32:12.599 of the sensibility genre itself, arguing that 00:32:12.599 --> 00:32:15.119 indulgence in romantic fantasies, often fostered 00:32:15.119 --> 00:32:17.380 by novel reading, is detrimental. Ironically, 00:32:17.400 --> 00:32:19.799 her most popular book in the 1790s was the one 00:32:19.799 --> 00:32:21.940 that embraced sensibility and imagination more 00:32:21.940 --> 00:32:24.319 deeply. Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and 00:32:24.319 --> 00:32:26.480 Denmark. This book was a phenomenal success. 00:32:26.819 --> 00:32:30.420 It's a remarkable stylistic achievement, blending 00:32:30.420 --> 00:32:33.859 sociological observation on Scandinavia with 00:32:33.859 --> 00:32:36.460 these deeply personal, heart -wrenching musings 00:32:36.460 --> 00:32:39.099 on her shattered identity and the collapse of 00:32:39.099 --> 00:32:41.380 the inlay relationship. Without ever naming him. 00:32:41.480 --> 00:32:43.640 Without ever naming him. It sounds like the rational 00:32:43.640 --> 00:32:45.900 philosopher gave way to the tormented romantic 00:32:45.900 --> 00:32:48.940 poet. She used the rhetoric of the sublime, the 00:32:48.940 --> 00:32:52.099 overwhelming beauty and terror of nature to explore 00:32:52.099 --> 00:32:55.559 her own suffering. Precisely. In this work, she 00:32:55.559 --> 00:32:57.940 gave far greater value to the imagination than 00:32:57.940 --> 00:33:00.740 she had in her earlier purely rational treatises. 00:33:00.880 --> 00:33:03.720 She contrasted the imaginative connection to 00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:06.539 nature with the commercial mercenary attitude, 00:33:06.759 --> 00:33:10.299 a clear veiled jab at Imlay. And the influence 00:33:10.299 --> 00:33:12.900 of this shift was immense, particularly on the 00:33:12.900 --> 00:33:15.259 Romantic generation. The book was universally 00:33:15.259 --> 00:33:18.200 praised. It was highly influential on major Romantic 00:33:18.200 --> 00:33:20.539 poets, including Wordsworth and Coleridge. And 00:33:20.539 --> 00:33:22.619 as we noted, Godwin himself confessed it was 00:33:22.619 --> 00:33:24.019 the book that made him fall in love with her. 00:33:24.240 --> 00:33:26.299 She had finally achieved through vulnerability 00:33:26.299 --> 00:33:28.779 the intellectual and emotional connection she 00:33:28.779 --> 00:33:31.480 craved. But this brief moment of critical acclaim 00:33:31.480 --> 00:33:33.880 and marital happiness was brutally short circuited 00:33:33.880 --> 00:33:36.900 by the man who loved her most. We have to discuss 00:33:36.900 --> 00:33:40.240 the catastrophic effect of William Godwin's memoirs. 00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:42.640 Godwin published his memoirs of the author of 00:33:42.640 --> 00:33:45.059 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in January 00:33:45.059 --> 00:33:48.880 1798, just months after her death. His intention 00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:51.519 was to portray his wife with love and sincere 00:33:51.519 --> 00:33:54.430 transparency. based on his philosophical belief 00:33:54.430 --> 00:33:56.970 in complete honesty he revealed everything and 00:33:56.970 --> 00:33:59.390 by revealing everything her illegitimate children 00:33:59.390 --> 00:34:02.589 her love affairs her two public suicide attempts 00:34:02.589 --> 00:34:05.740 he inadvertently destroyed her reputation for 00:34:05.740 --> 00:34:08.480 nearly a century. The effect was instant and 00:34:08.480 --> 00:34:11.340 catastrophic. The public was scandalized. The 00:34:11.340 --> 00:34:14.219 poet Robert Southey accused Godwin of the want 00:34:14.219 --> 00:34:16.420 of all feeling and stripping his dead wife naked. 00:34:16.619 --> 00:34:19.019 She was immediately satirized. Most famously 00:34:19.019 --> 00:34:21.300 in Rickard Polhoyle's misogynistic poem, The 00:34:21.300 --> 00:34:23.840 Unsexed Females. She was openly portrayed in 00:34:23.840 --> 00:34:26.579 novels as a morally depraved, dangerous figure, 00:34:26.760 --> 00:34:29.219 like the freakish Harriet Freak and Maria Edgeworth's 00:34:29.219 --> 00:34:31.579 Belinda. So she became synonymous with moral 00:34:31.579 --> 00:34:34.719 degradation and danger. radicalism. For polite 00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:38.000 19th century society, she was essentially unmentionable. 00:34:38.079 --> 00:34:40.639 Her books were censored, ignored, actively suppressed. 00:34:41.260 --> 00:34:43.920 Yet the sources show us her work didn't entirely 00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:47.360 vanish. Its influence became subtle, covert, 00:34:47.679 --> 00:34:49.599 working through the intellectual underground. 00:34:50.019 --> 00:34:52.239 We see this influence popping up in unexpected 00:34:52.239 --> 00:34:54.940 places, especially among women writers of the 00:34:54.940 --> 00:34:57.619 next generation like Jane Austen. Absolutely. 00:34:58.199 --> 00:35:00.940 Though Austen could never openly endorse the 00:35:00.940 --> 00:35:03.980 disgraced Wollstonecraft, literary scholars point 00:35:03.980 --> 00:35:07.139 to positive allusions. For instance, Elizabeth 00:35:07.139 --> 00:35:09.300 Bennett's sarcastic remarks in Pride and Prejudice 00:35:09.300 --> 00:35:12.099 about superficial female accomplishments are 00:35:12.099 --> 00:35:15.159 almost direct echoes of Wollstonecraft's condemnation. 00:35:15.340 --> 00:35:17.820 The theme of balancing sense and sensibility. 00:35:18.119 --> 00:35:20.539 It's deeply indebted to the intellectual problem 00:35:20.539 --> 00:35:23.699 Wollstonecraft framed. Her philosophy was permeating 00:35:23.699 --> 00:35:26.219 the very intellectual air women breathe, even 00:35:26.219 --> 00:35:28.760 when she was publicly scorned. And the true revival 00:35:28.760 --> 00:35:30.880 was led by activists who needed a foremother 00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:32.980 for their struggle. The American movement was 00:35:32.980 --> 00:35:36.679 key. Activists Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady 00:35:36.679 --> 00:35:40.059 Stanton bonded over reading Wollstonecraft. They 00:35:40.059 --> 00:35:42.300 were directly inspired by her vision to call 00:35:42.300 --> 00:35:45.280 the foundational 1848 Seneca Falls Convention 00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:48.179 the birthplace of the organized women's rights 00:35:48.179 --> 00:35:50.769 movement in the United States. But the formal 00:35:50.769 --> 00:35:53.250 rehabilitation in England really took hold at 00:35:53.250 --> 00:35:55.130 the turn of the 20th century. With the suffrage 00:35:55.130 --> 00:35:58.309 movement, yes. The suffragist needed an intellectual 00:35:58.309 --> 00:36:01.789 tradition. In 1892, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, 00:36:01.889 --> 00:36:03.690 one of the foremost leaders of the movement, 00:36:03.869 --> 00:36:06.090 wrote the introduction to the centenary edition 00:36:06.090 --> 00:36:08.869 of Rights of Woman. It was a deliberate, formal 00:36:08.869 --> 00:36:11.190 effort to cleanse her memory, claiming her as 00:36:11.190 --> 00:36:12.849 the intellectual foremother of their struggle. 00:36:13.050 --> 00:36:14.989 And since then, she has been embraced by every 00:36:14.989 --> 00:36:17.510 subsequent feminist wave. From Virginia Woolf. 00:36:17.800 --> 00:36:20.579 who wrote about her experiments in living, to 00:36:20.579 --> 00:36:23.559 modern political philosophers. The Nobel laureate 00:36:23.559 --> 00:36:26.159 Amartya Sen uses her ideas repeatedly in his 00:36:26.159 --> 00:36:29.099 work on global justice. Contemporary figures 00:36:29.099 --> 00:36:31.760 like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and writers like Caitlin 00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:34.760 Moran all cite her influence. She is no longer 00:36:34.760 --> 00:36:37.300 just a figure of feminist history. She is a global 00:36:37.300 --> 00:36:40.099 political philosopher. And her continued relevance 00:36:40.099 --> 00:36:42.400 was perfectly demonstrated by the controversy 00:36:42.400 --> 00:36:44.940 surrounding her commemorative sculpture in 2020. 00:36:45.300 --> 00:36:47.519 The sculpture by Maggie Hambling in Newington 00:36:47.519 --> 00:36:51.239 Green sparked massive debate. Many felt it was 00:36:51.239 --> 00:36:53.340 highly inappropriate because it was a symbolic 00:36:53.340 --> 00:36:56.619 nude depiction rather than a lifelike one. Critics 00:36:56.619 --> 00:36:59.099 argued it diminished the gravity of her intellectual 00:36:59.099 --> 00:37:01.579 achievements, playing right back into the very 00:37:01.579 --> 00:37:04.500 notion of women's value being tied to the body. 00:37:04.840 --> 00:37:07.000 Which is exactly what Wollstonecraft fought so 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:09.480 hard against. But that controversy itself proves 00:37:09.480 --> 00:37:12.199 the point. She remains a dynamic, active, and 00:37:12.199 --> 00:37:15.139 disputed figure in cultural debates today. So 00:37:15.139 --> 00:37:17.260 what we have seen today is Mary Wollstonecraft 00:37:17.260 --> 00:37:20.320 moving from this childhood defined by financial 00:37:20.320 --> 00:37:23.019 precarity and domestic violence to becoming truly 00:37:23.019 --> 00:37:26.219 the first of a new genus. A writer whose life 00:37:26.219 --> 00:37:28.559 was the source material for her political vision. 00:37:28.989 --> 00:37:31.869 She wielded pamphlets as weapons with a vindication 00:37:31.869 --> 00:37:34.070 of the rights of men and permanently changed 00:37:34.070 --> 00:37:37.070 the discourse on gender and education with a 00:37:37.070 --> 00:37:39.440 vindication of the rights of women. What's truly 00:37:39.440 --> 00:37:42.460 fascinating here is the stark contrast between 00:37:42.460 --> 00:37:45.460 the intellectual ideal she promoted, rationality, 00:37:45.460 --> 00:37:48.860 control, reason over sensibility, and the volatile, 00:37:49.039 --> 00:37:51.599 passionate and often reckless life she lived. 00:37:51.760 --> 00:37:54.079 I'm still struggling to reconcile the Lockean 00:37:54.079 --> 00:37:55.980 rationalist with the woman who tried to drown 00:37:55.980 --> 00:37:58.940 herself twice. And it suggests that for her, 00:37:59.079 --> 00:38:01.880 the drive for intellectual freedom and the desire 00:38:01.880 --> 00:38:04.920 for emotional fulfillment were just inextricably 00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:08.349 linked. Her philosophy was her attempt to rationalize 00:38:08.349 --> 00:38:10.750 a world that was constantly threatening to destroy 00:38:10.750 --> 00:38:14.030 her through irrational forces. Her life was an 00:38:14.030 --> 00:38:16.210 intense testing ground for her principles. And 00:38:16.210 --> 00:38:18.570 sometimes the principles failed the test. So 00:38:18.570 --> 00:38:20.650 what does this all mean? It means understanding 00:38:20.650 --> 00:38:22.809 her life is absolutely crucial to understanding 00:38:22.809 --> 00:38:25.269 her work. She was a writer whose personal experiments 00:38:25.269 --> 00:38:27.789 in living, as Virginia Woolf called them, were 00:38:27.789 --> 00:38:30.329 just as radical and often as catastrophic as 00:38:30.329 --> 00:38:32.449 her philosophy was for the society she sought 00:38:32.449 --> 00:38:35.469 to reform. Her demand for women to be rational 00:38:35.469 --> 00:38:37.730 was a necessary defense against a world that 00:38:37.730 --> 00:38:40.590 perpetually sought to confine them through sentimentality 00:38:40.590 --> 00:38:43.230 or dependency. Here is a final provocative thought 00:38:43.230 --> 00:38:45.690 for you, the learner, as you mull over her legacy. 00:38:46.210 --> 00:38:48.809 The source material confirms that her husband 00:38:49.340 --> 00:38:52.039 William Godwin, fell in love with her entirely 00:38:52.039 --> 00:38:55.320 by reading her letters written in Sweden, Norway, 00:38:55.460 --> 00:38:58.079 and Denmark, a book written out of deep sorrow 00:38:58.079 --> 00:39:00.619 and humiliation following Imlay's rejection. 00:39:01.079 --> 00:39:03.760 So if her most politically influential book was 00:39:03.760 --> 00:39:06.199 written from a place of cold, rational argument, 00:39:06.460 --> 00:39:09.260 consider this. Was her greatest rhetorical power 00:39:09.260 --> 00:39:11.780 achieved not when arguing purely through reason, 00:39:12.019 --> 00:39:14.980 but when blending that raw, passionate sensibility 00:39:14.980 --> 00:39:18.000 with profound political reflection? Did the pain 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:20.929 unlock a deeper form of persuasive genius. We 00:39:20.929 --> 00:39:23.210 encourage you to seek out those sources and explore 00:39:23.210 --> 00:39:25.769 the full, beautiful, and devastating complexity 00:39:25.769 --> 00:39:28.250 of Mary Wollstonecraft for yourself. That is 00:39:28.250 --> 00:39:30.010 all the time we have for this deep dive. Thank 00:39:30.010 --> 00:39:31.489 you for joining us. We'll see you next time.