A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on
Political and Moral Subjects (1792), written by the
eighteenth-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest
works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to the educational
and political theorists of the eighteenth century who wanted to deny women an
education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with
their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation
because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to
their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to
society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they
are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men.
-- Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
