The duty to be a feminist

We are not talking about one feminism, but about feminist movements, plural — and many women remain their first, reluctant guardians. To illustrate this, this essay calls on Mary Wollstonecraft, an eighteenth-century writer: in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), she was already denouncing the dependence imposed on women and demanding their independence. Three centuries later, her words retain a troubling relevance.

Feminism, plural

I don't know what the word feminist evokes for this or that person. I simply know that we cannot speak of a single feminism, but of feminist movements, plural. It's worth noting how many women resist even the idea of calling themselves feminists. It's even more worth noting that they are the first guardians of the patriarchal temple, the first to boast of their partners' status to underline their own, the first to turn their sons into kings and their daughters into… men (paradoxically).

This is not meant as an indictment, but as a plea. Far from received ideas and clichés, allow me to introduce a few concepts developed by Mary Wollstonecraft.

M.W.: an eighteenth-century voice, still speaking to us

But before going any further, let me explain the reasons behind this choice. After all, "there are many feminist authors and thinkers," you might rightly point out. Well, as it happens, I chose Mary Wollstonecraft essentially to underline how contemporary her words, three centuries old, still are next to our society's news today. I don't know about you, but I find this comparison, and this anachronistic parallel, terrifying.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

In 1792, with the publication of her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft fires a powerful, forward-looking salvo, taking on women's emancipation from domestic life head-on. Her writing was a response to the Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau among them, whose enlightened ideas seemed confined to men. Women were not included. As if the mere mention of their emancipation was laughable.

She criticises the injustice and inconsistency of these thinkers who demanded freedom for men while excluding it for women. Their submission was "normal," taken for granted, as a response to the natural order of things.

In her work, she explains, in turn: "Women must cease to eat the bitter bread of dependence." and "I have long considered independence as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue."

She also rails against the all-too-common notion that portrays women as less rational, less capable of coherent thought than men:

"During supper, my host told me I was a woman of observation, because I asked him a man's questions." Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

"But if women are to be excluded from participation in the natural rights of humankind, and wholly deprived of any voice, at least in what particularly concerns them, prove first, to clear yourselves of the reproach of injustice and abuse, that they lack reason…"

A critique of domesticity

Mary Wollstonecraft argues that women have remained inferior because they have been kept within the domestic sphere, forced to be "toys." Society taught them that appearance, male opinion and marriage mattered more than intellectual and personal fulfilment. Shaped by a gender stereotype their own mothers reinforced, girls were raised to exploit their looks in order to find a man who would support and protect them.

A feminist message that remains relevant

Wollstonecraft was the first feminist to describe "marriage for support" as a form of prostitution. A shocking claim for its time. Lack of means often forced women into marriage. She believed that such a restricted life, hemmed in by domestic trivialities, could also cause psychological harm.

To restore women's dignity, Wollstonecraft recommends "a revolution in female manners." In her view, women should move into the public sphere and take up fields such as medicine or business. She urges an end to the social distinction between the sexes. She calls for equal rights for women so they can take control of their own lives.

Read also: O Queens, Woman, O Hopes!