Bravery and Feminism
“Liberty is the mother of virtue, and if women be, by their very constitution, slaves, and not allowed to breathe the sharp invigorating air of freedom, they must ever languish like exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws in nature.”
This beautiful passage was written by author, philosopher and pioneer of feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) an 18th century woman who was brave beyond words and whom I like to call, a prophetess.
Parashat Beshalach, our portion this week, highlights our prophetess, another Mary, which is Hebrew is Miriam. Miriam, with her daring, courageous and optimist vision took a tambourine with her upon escaping Egypt.
The Torah tells us that the Israelites left in such a hurry, their dough didn't have time to rise… and here is Miriam packing a luxury, a musical instrument. She knows. She knows she’ll get to play it in celebration. Our portion brings us the celebration — Shirat Hayam, the song of the sea, celebrating the miracle of the red sea.
Like Miriam, Mary Wollstonecraft had a vision, an optimistic one, a vision that we now get to live and take for granted, that of the liberation of women out of slavery.
Wollstonecraft was born second out of seven children to a family which saw an abusive father, one who time and time again failed in his business endeavors, get drunk and hit his wife, Wollstonecraft’s mother, senseless. Her biographers describe Mary as a young girl, lying on the floor by her mother’s door in an attempt to protect her.
Her father brought their family to a dire financial circumstance, but despite that and by acquiring great friends, Wollstonecraft managed to pursue education and find work as a governess and later as a writer.
As a governess, Wollstonecraft was in charge of the education of four daughters of an Irish family, expected to instill in them submissiveness and prepare them for their lives as “good wifes;” Wollstonecraft used her experience to not only liberate the minds of the young girls, but also to find her voice and launch her career as a writer with her book: “Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787).”
Wollstonecraft believed that education for women and girls held the key to their freedom and argued that women were rational creatures and had the capacity to develop and learn.
After moving to London and working there as a writer (a profession quite rare for women at that time) she moved to France and experienced the great French Revolution there. She was caught under the radical and unforgiving rule of the Jacobins and wrote extensively on the revolution, especially criticizing the conservative view of it. Her “Vindication of the Rights of Men, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke (1790)” made her instantly famous.
She also wrote novels, political commentaries, and even a children's book. Her most famous work, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792), became a foundational text of feminist philosophy.
In her personal life, Wollstonecraft was less successful. Attempting to put her ideals to practice, she engaged in relationships outside of marriage and suffered the consequences. She fell in love, head over heels, with the American adventurer Gilbert Imlay and had a daughter with him out of wedlock; their daughter Fanny spent her childhood with her mother as a lone woman, surviving a revolution and following her broken heart. Imlay did not accept Wollstonecraft and her daughter Fanny, and in an attempt to win back his heart Wollstoncraft, moved with her daughter to Scandinavia to investigate a missing shipment of silver on behalf of Imlay. This trip inspired her travelogue "Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796).”
But Imlay rejected her, and she attempted suicide twice. First by taking laudanum (a tincture of opium) and the second time by jumping off a bridge into the river Thames. A stranger saw her and rescued her.
Wollstonecraft fell in love again. This time with the Anarchist Philosopher William Godwin. Godwin read her "Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark” and said "If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book. She speaks of her sorrows, in a way that fills us with melancholy, and dissolves us in tenderness, at the same time that she displays a genius which commands all our admiration."
The two married after Wollstonecraft became pregnant again with her second daughter Mary. Tragically, Wollstonecraft died several days after giving birth from an infection in her placenta.
There is a famous Midrash about the splitting of the Red Sea in which the sea did not part until one person, Nachshon Ben Aminadav, took a leap of faith and walked in. He was submerged in the water and almost drowned; it was his powerful faith risking it all which produced the miracle.
I keep thinking of Wollstonecraft, who took that leap of faith for all of us women, who risked everything and jumped into the waters herself, metaphorically and figuratively. She too had a miracle and was rescued, given a chance for a second chapter in life.
What she wrote we now take for granted, but her freedom fighting prophecy echoes that of our prophetess Miriam.
Wollstonecraft's first daughter Fanny ended up committing suicide at the age of 22. Some suggest that it was for learning about her illegitimate birth, a fact which would ruin all prospects for women at the time.
Her second daughter Mary ended up marrying Percy Shelly. Yes, she was that Mary Shelly who wrote Frankenstein, one of the earliest novels to be called science fiction, and made her one of the most famous women authors of all time.
