Localized and Isolated: Mary Wollstonecraft and Adam Smith on the Rich, Women, and Public Opinion

This essay examines how Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman draws on and revises key themes from Adam Smith's moral philosophy. While Smith is often seen as a theorist of sympathy and market society, Wollstonecraft engages with his ideas to develop a distinctive critique of women's social and moral subordination. I highlight how she reworks Smith's account of moral development to emphasize the formative role of adversity, independence, and judgment-particularly in shaping female character. In doing so, Wollstonecraft also challenges the ideals of femininity promoted in contemporary conduct literature, exposing how they hinder moral agency and reinforce dependence. The analysis shows how she reimagines the moral conditions of modern society and offers an early feminist response to both commercial and sentimental conceptions of virtue.