Hannalie Taute Hyena in petticoats, 2023

This work is mounted on board and unframed. For framing please contact the gallery.

Mary Wollstonecraft, in her groundbreaking polemic, ‘A Vindication of the rights of woman (1792), fought with the French Republic founding philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau over his irrational refusal to accept that women were also creatures of Nurture, shaped, or rather misshapen, by their upbringing as lesser beings, and denied an education- indeed, denied any rights at all. Women, said Wollstonecraft, were not born frivolous; they were made frivolous,  and frivolity thrust upon them. Rousseau really wasn’t interested.  Liberty and equality were for the fraternity,  not the sisterhood. Women,   said Rousseau, didn’t deserve equality.  His reason? Men desire Women but don’t need them. Women desire men and need them. Wollstonecraft pointed out that being unable to earn a living wage or have any rights over her person or her property is what makes a woman need a man…and in such circumstances   how can he possibly be sure whether she desires him or not?