Mary Wollstonecraft / mary shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft // mary shelley

she started the feminst movement which urged more people to stand up and speak up about women and childrens rights, slavery, monarchy, abortion, and other things too . (mainly women rights) . she also started a school with her sister in Newington 

Greens. finally, she brought up new views on women in the 18th century society and her ideas are now a majority of what the western world believes.

http://www.answers.com/Q/What_were_Mary_Wollstonecraft_contributions_to_the_world

http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/marywoll.html

Though denied educational opportunities beyond the superficial schooling allowed to girls at the time, Wollstonecraft loved to read and yearned for intellectual life. Dissatisfied by the restricted career choices then available to women, she made the radical decision to support herself as a professional writer, something very few women of the time could do.

Wollstonecraft’s career choice, and especially her decision to write about political and philosophical issues, was not merely unconventional, it was perceived as “unwomanly” and “unnatural.” She, on the contrary, would argue that both women and men should be educated rationally, allowed to exercise their natural abilities, and held to the same reasonable standards of behavior, because women share the gift of reason and have the same innate human value as men.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, her most famous work on these themes, was a remarkably cutting-edge book in 1792, arguing, for example, that girls and boys should be co-educated and that women and men should share parental responsibilities.

http://www.feministsforlife.org/herstory/marywollstonecraft/

After surviving an unhappy childhood with an alcoholic and violent father, Mary Wollstonecraft spent time as a lady’s companion, a schoolmistress, and a governess. Later, her life took a dramatic turn. Beginning in 1794, she visited France and Scandinavia. She had a daughter out of wedlock with an American businessman and attempted suicide when their relationship failed. She then had an affair with British author William Godwin, and the two married after she became pregnant. Sadly, she died shortly after giving birth to a daughter, Mary, who would later be known as Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. Wollstonecraft’s diversified writings include subjects such as education, travel, history, politics, and women’s rights. She is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792).

http://www.library.unt.edu/rarebooks/exhibits/women/17th.htm#Aphra%20Behn

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