Mary Wollstonecraft’s Feminist Critique of Property. On Becoming a Thief From Principle

Summary, in English

The scholarship on Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) is divided concerning her views on women’s role in public life, property rights and distribution of wealth. Her critique of inequality of wealth is undisputed, but is it a complaint only of inequality or does it strike more forcefully at the institution of property? The argument in this article is that Wollstonecraft’s feminism is partly defined by a radical critique of property, intertwined with her conception of rights. Dissociating herself from the conceptualization of rights in terms of self-ownership, she casts economic independence – a necessary political criterion for personal freedom – in terms of fair reward for work, not ownership. Her critique of property moves beyond issues of redistribution to a feminist appraisal of a property structure that turns people into either owners or owned, rights holders or things acquired. The main characters in Wollstonecraft’s last novel – Maria who is rich but has nothing, and Jemima, who steals as a matter of principle – illustrate the commodification of women in a society where even rights are regarded as possessions.

• Author: Lena Halldenius
• Department/s: Human Rights Studies
• Publishing year: 2014
• Language: English
• Pages: 942-957
• Publication/Series: Hypatia
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 4
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12116
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Topic: Philosophy, Ethics and Religion
• Keywords: independence; inequality; rights; property; Mary Wollstonecraft; Locke; feminism; economic independence; self-ownership; freedom
• Status: Published
• Project: Mary Wollstonecraft and Feminist Republicanism
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 1527-2001