A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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Written in 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is one of the earliest works on "the woman question" and influenced the earliest feminists in England and America in the 19th century, primarily in their distancing themselves from the work due to the controversial life of its author.
Some major themes of this work are education for girls, the debased position of women in society, the necessary equality of men and women, and the right of women to work. Wollstonecraft intended this work to be a response to Rousseau's which discusses education for boys. Wollstonecraft's argument in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was that boys and girls should be educated equally, while in Émile the education of boys and girls is not equal.
Shortly after publication, an anonymous parody appeared entitled "A Vindication of the Rights of Beasts," in which the author (now known to be Cambridge Philosopher Thomas Taylor) applied all of Wollstonecraft's arguments to the rights of animals, showing that the same justifications that kept women subservient, could also be applied to animals.
Chapter titles include:
CHAP. I. The rights and involved duties of mankind considered
CHAP. II. The prevailing opinion of a sexual character discussed
CHAP. III. The same subject continued
CHAP. IV. Observations on the state of degradation to which woman is reduced by various causes
CHAP. V. Animadversions on some of the writers who have rendered women objects of pity, bordering on contempt
CHAP. VI. The effect which an early association of ideas has upon the character
CHAP. VII. Modesty.—Comprehensively considered, and not as a sexual virtue
CHAP. VIII. Morality undermined by sexual notions of the importance of a good reputation
CHAP. IX. Of the pernicious effects which arise from the unnatural distinctions established in society
CHAP. X. Parental affection
CHAP. XI. Duty to parents
CHAP. XII. On national education
CHAP. XIII. Some instances of the folly which the ignorance of women generates; with concluding reflections on the moral improvement that a revolution in female manners may naturally be expected to produce
External links
- [free on-line text], hosted by About.com
- [free on-line text], hosted by the University of Wales, Swansea
- [free on-line text] Bartleby.com's text of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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