Stacey Mandell
An Essential Education, 2023
Acrylic on Canvas
40 x 30 inches
Mary Wollstonecraft (the mother of Mary Shelley, the author of "Frankenstein") argues - in 1792! - that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society and then proceeds to redefine that position, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men. In this piece, I have transcribed into Gregg Shorthand Chapter 1 of Wollstonecraft’s treatise and created a narrative abstract of her prose.