A Woolfian Analysis of Wollstonecraft

Abstract

Both Virginia Woolf in “A Room of One’s Own” and Mary Wollstonecraft in “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” advocate for the intellectual development and independence of women, in order to improve their condition. Woolf argues for the end of the treatment of women as the “protected sex,” and that they should be exposed “to the same exertions and activities [as men],” (Woolf, 52). In “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” Wollstonecraft ventures to convince her audience of female personhood. While Wollstonecraft lacks the bold goals of Virginia Woolf, her argument for the humanity of women was truly radical for her time (Wollstonecraft, 91). Throughout “A Room of One’s Own,” Woolf provides commentary on how female writers must approach their work in order to be valued as writers and not only illustrations of the female sex. While Wollstonecraft wrote with the same ultimate goal as Woolf, of furthering women’s rights, she was unable to fulfill the androgynous standard that Woolf set for female writers. This was due, in part, to the rhetoric necessitated by her patriarchal conservative audience, but also to seemingly self-imposed constraints resulting from the acknowledgement of physical differences between the sexes that may lead to the development of different “duties” (Wollstonecraft 55). Wollstonecraft also lacked the materialistic wealth that Woolf necessitated for an androgynous lifestyle (Woolf 149).