Mary Wollstonecraft has a twitter account.

I have been the guest tweeter this week for the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas twitter account (@LMDAmericas).  One of the things I have tweeted about is our class, especially in the lead-up to the group teaching we did this week.  I got a response from Mary Wollstonecraft.  You can find her at @1759MaryWol1797.  Her response led me to her blog.  The blog (and twitter account) are actually run by a woman named Roberta Wedge.  Her reply to my tweet actually led me directly to this post on her blog, about Vindications readability.  Ms. Wedge ran a section of Vindication through a readability calculator.  Then she attempts to re-write the passage two times.  So we go from this:

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists—I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonimous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.”

to this:

“Look, I’m sorry, but you’re a thinking person, right? I’m not going to flatter you by saying how amazing you are, like you’re a little girl or a doll. You can stand on your own two feet. I’m here to tell you what real happiness is about. Strengthen your mind! Strengthen your body! Soft chat, falling in love, doing what other people want, all these are weak. If people pity you, their love will turn to contempt.”

for readability suited to approximately a 5th grade reading level.

Check out her full post (and explore the blog) here.

It turns out Mary is a cyborg too.