a vindication of the rights of woman 1792

Quotes from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft Married women did not even exist as a legal entity they could not enter a legal complaint, appear in court, or retain counsel. Very few were educated, almost no occupations were open to those who needed to earn a livelihood, and women could neither vote nor hold office. Until the middle of the 19th century, the condition of women remained very much what it had been when Mary Wollstonecraft was goaded into her echoing protest:

It is not given to many books to exert as powerful an influence as A Vindication has done, although its effect was delayed and for decades it was largely unread. She wrote a book in which she articulated her protest and her ideas of what education and equality of opportunity might do for society as a whole: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792. Mary Wollstonecraft was only thirty-eight when she died in 1797. The woman who first effective challenged the age-old image of her sex as lesser and subservient human beings lived a short and stormy life in late 18th-century England. This modern appreciation is from the preface to Mary Wollstonecraft: A Biography by women’s studies pioneer Eleanor Flexner (Coward, McCann, & Geoghegan, Inc., NY, 1972) A short and stormy life, a powerful influence She died just days after giving birth to her namesake, who ended up having an enormous impact on literature and culture in her own right. Mary Wollstonecraft was the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley, author of Frankenstein. This was a unique and radical view in 1792 when the book was first published.Ī Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects is considered one of the earliest works of feminist philosophical literature.

In the classic A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 –1797) argued for equality of men and women: Men and women, in her view, are born with ability to reason, and therefore power and influence should be equally available to all regardless of gender.

A vindication of the rights of woman 1792