An Analysis of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman [Paperback]

Mary Wollstonecrafts 1792 Vindication of the Rights of Women is an incendiary attack on the place of women in 18th-century society.

Often considered to be the earliest widely-circulated work of feminism, the book is a powerful example of what can be achieved by creative thinkers  people who refuse to be bound by the standard ways of thinking, or to see things through the same lenses that everyone else uses. In the case of the Vindication, Wollstonecrafts independent thinking went directly against the standard assumptions of the age regarding women.

During the seventeenth century and earlier, it was an entirely standard point of view to consider women as, largely speaking, uneducable. They were widely considered to be mens inferiors, incapable of rational thought. They not only did not need a rational education  it was assumed that they could not benefit from one. Wollstonecraft, in contrast, argued that womens apparent triviality was a direct consequence of society failing to educate them. If they were not mens equals, it was the fault of a society that refused to treat them as such. So radical was her message that it would take until the 20th century for her views to become truly accepted.

Ways In to the Text  Who was Mary Wollstonecraft?  What does A Vindication of the Rights of Women Say?  Why does A Vindication of the Rights of Women  Matter?  Section 1: Influences  Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context  Module 2: Academic Context  Module 3: The Problem  Module 4: The Author's Contribution  Section 2: Ideas  Module 5: Main Ideas  Module 6: Secondary Ideas  Module 7: Achievement  Module 8: Place in the Author's Work  Section 3: Impaclç