Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft: Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a revolutionary early feminist test asking for reform of women’s education. Written and published in 1792 in response to Talleyrand’s 1791 treatise on public education. Wollstonecraft reflecting and arguing against Talleyrand’s report feeling that it glaring neglected the intellectual and rational education of women by suggesting an education suited for domesticity and continuing the misogynistic view women were not capable of rational, intellectual, or scientific thought.
Historic Background The condition of women in general is appalling by modern standards but cannot be adequately compared by modern ideas and standards, however by the standards of their time women are largely unequal and have little or no power especially among the upper classes. Women were considered physically, morally, and mentally weaker than men. Women had no voting rights, married women’s property, children and etc. are in the control of her husband and are his property. In general women are not primary property owners in their own right; if there is a male member of the family they own and control the property and incomes. Primogeniture is still practiced. Widows have more rights than single

They are taught to do this rather than thinking intelligently and rationally; carefully weighing the facts. Women, she argues, think in a waffling, flighty manner because that is what they have been taught to do. They do not focus on the facts or present strong arguments, they come across as scatterbrained, helpless creatures in need of protection. This was in her opinion a learned behavior, that women did indeed possess the intellect for rational thought. This flighty action was the result of an inadequate education. Because of this women were not seen as equal members of