Dear Mother of Feminism, It's Me Lila
Written by Lila Fisher
Throughout my few years of giving myself the label of a feminist, I've never once been taught about a woman changing the world. We read about Rosa Parks in third grade but all her significance to myself and my classmates was her sitting on a bus. You hear myths of Cleopatra and her cool eyeliner but not that she was a pharaoh of the Egyptian patriarchy. So like many other young women of today's society I have had to take the education into my own hands. Upon being asked to write this, I looked deeper into women that have changed the world. And amongst the names and the stories I found an unfamiliar name. Her name was Mary Wollstonecraft. I had never heard of her. Her brief description on the site I was on said she was the "Mother of Feminism". Thus sparking my interests.
Mary Wollstonecraft lived from 1759-1797. So basically she lived in a time where being a woman wasn't easy whatsoever. Throughout her life Mary was constantly faced with not-so-nice men expecting her to be the traditional silent woman. She left home early in life and threw herself into a writing career. Her most famous works "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", she smashed the standard of a woman only being useful in a domestic setting. She voiced opinions that would be mirrored almost 220 years later. Her ideals are the backbone of modern feminism and I found her extremely inspiring! In today's society at least women are allowed to voice an opinion, imagine sitting in 1792 as a woman and try to get your point across! In later works, she goes on to say women had sexual desires and it was foolish to think otherwise. The image of a docile woman was being challenged for one of the first times in history.
After all of this huge history lesson and rant about a woman I didn't hear about until recently, here is why this matters. Wollstonecraft had always been expected to stay at home and tend to a family. But instead, she told her opinions and was unapologetic. She inspires me. As a teenage girl in the media age, the mean comments and opinions often rack my brain. I sometimes lose all hope of women ever having equality. But then I remember women like Mary. Who was one of the first women to ever be open about ACTUALLY being a woman! It had always been men saying how women feel and do. But now after learning about how this English girl became the Mother of Feminism, I know women change the world. I know now that being unapologetic and sometimes brash is totally okay. It's okay to be angry about situations you are in and to want to change it. Equality is something we will be striving for for a long time. But just because it hasn't gotten better in the past week doesn't mean it's not worth it. Today, because of women like Mary Wollstonecraft, equality is that much closer.
Follow Lila:
Instagram: @lilathesprout
Twitter: @lilaiguess
Sources:
qotd.org
biography.com
womenshistory.com
Throughout my few years of giving myself the label of a feminist, I've never once been taught about a woman changing the world. We read about Rosa Parks in third grade but all her significance to myself and my classmates was her sitting on a bus. You hear myths of Cleopatra and her cool eyeliner but not that she was a pharaoh of the Egyptian patriarchy. So like many other young women of today's society I have had to take the education into my own hands. Upon being asked to write this, I looked deeper into women that have changed the world. And amongst the names and the stories I found an unfamiliar name. Her name was Mary Wollstonecraft. I had never heard of her. Her brief description on the site I was on said she was the "Mother of Feminism". Thus sparking my interests.
Mary Wollstonecraft lived from 1759-1797. So basically she lived in a time where being a woman wasn't easy whatsoever. Throughout her life Mary was constantly faced with not-so-nice men expecting her to be the traditional silent woman. She left home early in life and threw herself into a writing career. Her most famous works "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", she smashed the standard of a woman only being useful in a domestic setting. She voiced opinions that would be mirrored almost 220 years later. Her ideals are the backbone of modern feminism and I found her extremely inspiring! In today's society at least women are allowed to voice an opinion, imagine sitting in 1792 as a woman and try to get your point across! In later works, she goes on to say women had sexual desires and it was foolish to think otherwise. The image of a docile woman was being challenged for one of the first times in history.
After all of this huge history lesson and rant about a woman I didn't hear about until recently, here is why this matters. Wollstonecraft had always been expected to stay at home and tend to a family. But instead, she told her opinions and was unapologetic. She inspires me. As a teenage girl in the media age, the mean comments and opinions often rack my brain. I sometimes lose all hope of women ever having equality. But then I remember women like Mary. Who was one of the first women to ever be open about ACTUALLY being a woman! It had always been men saying how women feel and do. But now after learning about how this English girl became the Mother of Feminism, I know women change the world. I know now that being unapologetic and sometimes brash is totally okay. It's okay to be angry about situations you are in and to want to change it. Equality is something we will be striving for for a long time. But just because it hasn't gotten better in the past week doesn't mean it's not worth it. Today, because of women like Mary Wollstonecraft, equality is that much closer.
Portrait of Wollstonecraft
Instagram: @lilathesprout
Twitter: @lilaiguess
Sources:
qotd.org
biography.com
womenshistory.com
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