The Radical Ideas Of Mary Wollstonecraft Summary

In Susan Ferguson’s article, “The Radical Ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft” (1999), she assesses Wollstonecraft’s politicization of both the institutions of family and class. Contrary to Abbey, Ferguson argues that although Wollstonecraft politicizes the gender inequality by predicating the emancipation of women to a broader structural change in society, Wollstonecraft does not challenge the separation of the public-private sphere. Nevertheless, Ferguson contends that Wollstonecraft’s work is still radical in the particular way in which she politicizes family and class: in other words, Wollstonecraft does not threaten the separation of the public and private sphere, but her work is still egalitarian to a certain extent in that it primarily applies …show more content…
As such, Wollstonecraft (1792) criticizes her society and its educational system for enforcing gender roles, particularly promoting the counter-intuitive practice of obtaining a husband through superficial pleasing. Thus, there is a clear causal relationship between the public administration of education and subsequent consequence in the private institution of marriage. Furthermore, there are other significant implications as the unequal power balance between husband and wife affects the children and politicizes the family. Abbey (1999) conceptualizes four dimensions in which the family is political: (1) in the power relations between members, (2) that these relationships influence the sort of citizens the individuals within the family will become, (3) thus, relationships within the family should reflect ethical ideas that govern the public sphere, and (4) lastly, equality in the public sphere can only take place if there is equality in the private realm. However, despite these arguments that appear to challenge the core liberal assumption of a public-private dichotomy, Wollstonecraft’s argument is still premised on liberal values. Not only offering a critique of her society, Abbey argues