Mary Wollstonecraft – UGC NET – Political Science Notes

Mary Wollstonecraft

(UGC NET Detailed Notes)

Western Political Thought (Unit 2)

UGC NET POLITICAL SCIENCE

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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

Table of Contents

LIFE SKETCH
PRICE AND THE SUFFRAGE QUESTION
Criticism of Burke
Response to the French Revolution
WOLLSTONECRAFT AND CONTEMPORARY FEMINISTS
Views on Women
Role and Importance of Education
Educational Reforms
Faith in Reason
Liberty and Equality
Rights and Representation
Rejection of Patriarchy
Role of Women and Prescription for Change
CONCLUSION

Wollstonecraft’s achievement was extending the commonwealth analysis of male corruption and reform to women.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a classic text of liberal feminism, though it had little practical influence on mainstream political or liberal tradition.
Wollstonecraft advocated not so much political rights but emancipation from drudgery and social/economic inferiority for women.
Emancipation would allow women to contribute more fully to society.
Whiggism was crucial in understanding the British political tradition; liberalism developed from it.
Whiggism was not primarily an economic doctrine but served the interests of the middle class.
Whiggism called for parliamentary supremacy, consent for legitimate government, freedom of conscience, religious toleration, and no taxation without representation.
Alongside Whiggism, radical opinion shaped British liberalism.
Radicals considered themselves to be ‘Real,’ ‘True,’ and ‘Honest’ Whigs, invoking the spirit of commonwealthmenfrom the English revolutions.
Unlike Whiggism, which had a coherent doctrine and party, radicals were an amorphous group.
Radicals included thinkers, politicians, non-conformists, and pioneers, with Thomas Paine as the most significant.
Mainstream Whig politicians often preserved their own property and privileges despite claiming certain principles.
Thomas Paine interpreted Whig principles radically, advocating for political equality and full manhood suffragewithout property restrictions.
From the 1760s to 1790s, many in Britain called for democratization of parliament, abolition of second-class status for Dissenters, and women’s rights.
The demands for reform were influenced by the French Revolution of 1789.
Reformers used Locke’s natural rights theory, Anglo-Saxon egalitarianism, and utilitarianism to defend widening suffrage.
Other reform demands included annual elections, equal electoral districts, secret ballots, abolition of property qualifications for MPs, payment to MPs, and manhood suffrage.
Wollstonecraft, aligned with Protestant Dissenters like Price and Priestly, advocated for women’s rights in this context.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is the first classic work in feminist thought.
Over the last 200 years, A Vindication has been debated, vilified, and eulogized.
Wollstonecraft, influenced by the Enlightenment and French Revolution, extended the radical opinions of Paine and Price.
She exposed the myth of equality, highlighting that half of the human race—women—was ignored.
Wollstonecraft critiqued even Rousseau, demolishing his arguments in Émile.
The feminist ideal and the claim for equal human rights were fully outlined in A Vindication, and it has remained the text of the feminist movement ever since.

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