UCLA Center for the Study of Women

This article discusses the unfinished novel authored by Mary Wollstonecraft, "The Wrongs of Women, or Maria" in relationship to Wollstonecraft's own decisions during childbirth. Wollstonecraft decided to use a female midwife for the birth of her child, an unpopular choice at the time. Because of complications during the birth, and the assumed authority of male practitioners, Wollstonecraft died as a result of a faulty intervention by a male doctor.