English subtitles for clip: File:Ikusgela-Mary Wollstonecraft.webm
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1 00:00:03,830 --> 00:00:07,969 In 1789, the French Revolution disrupted history, 2 00:00:07,993 --> 00:00:11,770 removing power from the church and the nobility. 3 00:00:12,340 --> 00:00:15,615 In return, the bourgeoisie took its place and established 4 00:00:15,639 --> 00:00:18,680 important changes in social organization. 5 00:00:19,590 --> 00:00:21,618 But what did women face in 6 00:00:21,642 --> 00:00:23,740 those new times of supposed freedom? 7 00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:27,180 Spoiler: they lived isolated and oppressed. 8 00:00:28,270 --> 00:00:31,335 However, some women gave up their 9 00:00:31,359 --> 00:00:34,710 imposed roles and challenged the morals of the time. 10 00:00:35,160 --> 00:00:39,740 One of them is the British writer and thinker Mary Wollstonecraft. 11 00:00:40,130 --> 00:00:43,868 She wrote texts that today we consider feminist, 12 00:00:43,892 --> 00:00:46,886 that were absolutely disruptive in her time. 13 00:00:47,890 --> 00:00:51,800 She was born on April 27, 1759 in London, 14 00:00:51,824 --> 00:00:56,010 within a bourgeois upper-middle class family. 15 00:00:56,620 --> 00:01:01,050 She had to start working at a very young age as a seamstress and teacher. 16 00:01:01,700 --> 00:01:05,933 She also created a school for women, because education was 17 00:01:05,957 --> 00:01:10,480 an important variable that conditioned the fate of women. 18 00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:14,494 But Wollstonecraft had intellectual concerns and 19 00:01:14,518 --> 00:01:17,390 clearly wanted to build her profession based on it. 20 00:01:18,590 --> 00:01:24,290 She was also a professional writer, novelist and essayist. 21 00:01:25,690 --> 00:01:29,334 Attracted by the French Revolution, she moved to 22 00:01:29,358 --> 00:01:33,221 Paris in 1792 and immersed herself in the intellectual environment 23 00:01:33,245 --> 00:01:37,077 until she had to return to her hometown 24 00:01:37,101 --> 00:01:40,800 due to tensions between France and Great Britain. 25 00:01:42,491 --> 00:01:45,954 Wollstonecraft saw the French Revolution 26 00:01:45,978 --> 00:01:48,247 with good eyes, but she was also critical with it, 27 00:01:49,004 --> 00:01:52,990 with the atmosphere of fear and censorship that the revolution brought. 28 00:01:53,800 --> 00:01:56,349 Wollstonecraft developed some ideas that 29 00:01:56,373 --> 00:01:59,180 have been the pillars of feminist thought. 30 00:01:59,460 --> 00:02:04,216 Her most significant work was. 31 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:08,486 "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", published in 1792. 32 00:02:08,511 --> 00:02:11,780 "Emakumearen eskubideen aldeko defentsa" in Basque. 33 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:15,300 The title clearly indicates the essence of the book. 34 00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:18,990 Here you have a summary of Wollstonecraft's reflections in five points. 35 00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:22,610 1-Gender differentiation is not based on nature. 36 00:02:23,380 --> 00:02:27,680 The society of the time recognized man's reason and freedom. 37 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:31,647 The woman, on the other hand, was considered an emotional being, ideal 38 00:02:31,671 --> 00:02:35,220 for pleasure, unable to make decisions for herself. 39 00:02:36,150 --> 00:02:38,719 Wollstonecraft argued that this inequality 40 00:02:38,743 --> 00:02:41,426 is socially constructed: education, 41 00:02:41,450 --> 00:02:43,615 laws and customs make men 42 00:02:43,639 --> 00:02:46,750 and women develop different traits. 43 00:02:47,010 --> 00:02:49,656 In other words, women are just as capable of 44 00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:52,350 develop any skill like men. 45 00:02:53,700 --> 00:02:55,560 2-Against marriage. 46 00:02:56,550 --> 00:03:00,234 Wollstonecraft confronted the institution of marriage 47 00:03:00,258 --> 00:03:04,280 as one of the causes of the situation of female dependency. 48 00:03:04,890 --> 00:03:07,167 In Europe at the time, women were economically 49 00:03:07,191 --> 00:03:09,680 and legally dependent on their husbands. 50 00:03:10,010 --> 00:03:13,048 The sons and daughters belonged to the husband, who had 51 00:03:13,072 --> 00:03:16,270 right to do almost anything with them. 52 00:03:17,090 --> 00:03:22,290 She eventually married the anarchist thinker William Godwin. 53 00:03:22,610 --> 00:03:26,410 Of course, only to give legal protection to her second daughter. 54 00:03:27,510 --> 00:03:30,768 3-She presented reason and emotions completely 55 00:03:30,792 --> 00:03:34,730 separated, as many Enlightenment thinkers did. 56 00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:37,898 According to the writer, reason must control 57 00:03:37,922 --> 00:03:40,664 human activity above emotions. 58 00:03:40,688 --> 00:03:43,300 She valued emotions as secondary. 59 00:03:43,870 --> 00:03:47,389 However, in her last book she broke with 60 00:03:47,413 --> 00:03:50,006 this path, changing her emotional attitude 61 00:03:50,030 --> 00:03:53,523 and representing it in a more complex and 62 00:03:53,547 --> 00:03:56,190 and fruitful way the relationship between reason and emotion. 63 00:03:57,470 --> 00:04:01,910 4-Against the separation of the private and the public. 64 00:04:01,934 --> 00:04:03,914 In the enlightened thought the distinction between 65 00:04:03,938 --> 00:04:06,100 the private and the public was very strong. 66 00:04:06,620 --> 00:04:10,704 What was done at home or within the family was considered personal, 67 00:04:10,728 --> 00:04:14,380 and it did not have to conform to the norms of the public sphere. 68 00:04:14,850 --> 00:04:18,640 Wollstonecraft, in this sense, was not a standard enlightened person. 69 00:04:18,900 --> 00:04:22,684 She claimed the need to change public relations 70 00:04:22,708 --> 00:04:26,000 and private towards the equality of women and men. 71 00:04:26,210 --> 00:04:29,743 She said that inappropriate relationships, or toxic, 72 00:04:29,767 --> 00:04:33,620 as we would say now, gave birth to monsters. 73 00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:38,411 5-Critical character, until the end. 74 00:04:38,435 --> 00:04:42,330 Wollstonecraft also opposed the thinkers she felt were closest to her. 75 00:04:43,270 --> 00:04:45,490 The clear example is that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 76 00:04:46,050 --> 00:04:49,980 She admired the great thinker of the ideas of the Enlightenment. 77 00:04:51,030 --> 00:04:54,730 And yet he harshly criticized her: Rousseau excluded 78 00:04:54,754 --> 00:04:58,411 women from scientific and academic education. 79 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:02,880 According to Rousseau, women were actually dependent. 80 00:05:04,020 --> 00:05:06,493 But the revolutionary character of the British thinker 81 00:05:06,517 --> 00:05:09,430 was not developed only through her written texts. 82 00:05:09,930 --> 00:05:13,080 She also reflected that thoughts in her life. 83 00:05:13,790 --> 00:05:17,919 Here are some examples: she fell in love with the painter 84 00:05:17,943 --> 00:05:22,340 Henry Fuseli and proposed to him and his wife to have a threesome. 85 00:05:22,560 --> 00:05:24,545 But no, they didn't accept it. 86 00:05:24,680 --> 00:05:29,090 Her later relationship was with the American adventurer Gilbert Imlay. 87 00:05:29,460 --> 00:05:32,632 It was not a relationship subject to the standards of the time: 88 00:05:32,656 --> 00:05:35,730 she had a daughter with him out of wedlock. 89 00:05:36,220 --> 00:05:38,706 Her disruptive personal life provoked contempt 90 00:05:38,730 --> 00:05:41,036 towards her work in the society of the time. 91 00:05:41,060 --> 00:05:47,740 Her husband William Godwin's memoirs influenced this. 92 00:05:47,940 --> 00:05:52,044 After several years in the shadow of history, 93 00:05:52,068 --> 00:05:55,863 feminists recovered her legacy and her ideas in the mid-20th century 94 00:05:56,270 --> 00:05:57,760 and they made her a reference. 95 00:05:58,650 --> 00:06:02,746 Wollstonecraft had a significant death: she died at 38, 96 00:06:02,770 --> 00:06:06,890 a few days after giving birth to her daughter of the same name. 97 00:06:07,500 --> 00:06:09,420 Her daughter survived. 98 00:06:09,470 --> 00:06:11,575 Listen carefully to her name and the surname 99 00:06:11,599 --> 00:06:13,785 she took when she married: Mary Shelley. 100 00:06:13,810 --> 00:06:15,320 Sounds familiar to you, right? 101 00:06:15,820 --> 00:06:17,241 Well yes. 102 00:06:17,290 --> 00:06:21,800 The famous writer of Frankenstein was the daughter of Wollstonecraft. 103 00:06:22,123 --> 00:06:24,180 Like mother like daughter.