Fanny Fern: A Woman Ahead of Her Time

Sara Payson Willis Parton was a vocal feminist, constantly writing in defense of women’s rights. She believed women were as smart as men, and should be allowed to follow any career they chose. She wrote about birth control, divorce, education for women, sexism in religion and marriage, and women’s poverty. Her writings are very funny, and her witty criticisms and satires of sexist men drew a lot of attention. Her ideas were way ahead of her time, and people often didn’t agree with her .In this essay, I will examine the life of Fanny Fern, and discuss how the society she came from played a major role in influencing her writings.
Notoriously known as Fanny Fern, Sara was born in Portland, Maine, and was originally named Grata Payson after the mother of the Congregational minister Edward Payson, whose sermons had influenced her father in a immensely. She was the fifth of nine children born to Nathaniel and Hannah Willis. In the early 17th century, her predecessors had come fro...