A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women

Mary Wollstonecraft

Jan 2014 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

In her seminal text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft crafts a masterful response to the inherently sexist public education system in eighteenth century England. Taking an uncommon position for her time, Wollstonecraft argued the importance of allowing young women equal access to the education system, and asserted that females, like their male counterparts, should be defined by their vocations and not their marital partners. Comparing the treatment of married women to that of property, Wollstonecraft keenly argued that men and women should be treated as humans equal in the eyes of God.

Originally met with both criticism and respect, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is regarded as one of the earliest examples of feminist literature and it continues to be studied to this day, over 200 years after its first publication.

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Ratings and reviews

Overall it was a great book with a message that was as yet unheard during her time, but she tended to quote other authors, in passages that went on for so long that the writing styles of the different authors became confusing. But with negative criticism aside, it is a historical peek into the female world of high class society of her time that cannot be found anywhere else.

About the author

Mary Wollstonecraft was born in London on April 27, 1759. She opened a school in Newington Green with her sister Eliza and a friend Fanny Blood in 1784. Her experiences lead her to attack traditional teaching methods and suggested new topics of study in Thoughts on the Education of Girls. In 1792, she published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she attacked the educational restrictions that kept women ignorant and dependant on men as well as describing marriage as legal prostitution. In Maria or the Wrongs of Woman, published unfinished in 1798, she asserted that women had strong sexual desires and that it was degrading and immoral to pretend otherwise. In 1793, Wollstonecraft became involved with American writer Gilbert Imlay and had a daughter named Fanny. After this relationship ended, she married William Godwin in March 1797 and had a daughter named Mary in August. Wollstonecraft died from complications following childbirth on September 10, 1797. Her daughter Mary later married Percy Bysshe Shelley and wrote Frankenstein.