-- 23 Sep 2014, 20:53 --
Very true, but Wollstonecraft was never taken as seriously as she would've liked. Especially after her husband Godwin published a detailed biography of her life in which the illegitimacy of one of her children was explained. This ultimately reversed any affect she had on gender politics of the time. But her work revived in the hands of later feminists. As for Austen, Pride and Prejudice certainly contains many ideas that would usually be considered by feminists, such as the effect that marriage has on women, their political and financial power (Lady Catherine de Bourgh springs to mind) and individualism within a patriarchal society. This is the beauty of Austen -- she always explores more than you think! Whether you've read it ten or twenty times, there's always something more to explore!David Dawson wrote: "Well the word and the notion of a political philosophy may not have arisen until the late 19th/ early 20th century, but - for instance - Jane Austen was in her teens when Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women was published, so it is not as though there was no argument for women's rights going on at the time."