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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

by Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)

  • Free to read
  • 6 hours to read
  • 26 chapters
  • Reading level: College-level

"A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Mary Wollstonecraft is a feminist essay written in 1792. Wollstonecraft argues that women deserve rational education and fundamental rights equal to men. Responding to eighteenth-century theorists who advocated only domestic education for women, she challenges the view of women as ornaments or property. Instead, she insists women are human beings who should be companions to their husbands and educated contributors to society. This groundbreaking work attacks double standards and launched debates about women's rights that influenced movements for decades to come.

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  • Feminism
  • Women's rights · Great Britain
  • Women · Education · Great Britain
  • Women · History · 19th century

Read the opening

Chapter 1

THE RIGHTS AND INVOLVED DUTIES OF MANKIND CONSIDERED.

In the present state of society, it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning is built; though, when entangled with various motives of action, they are formally contradicted, either by the words or conduct of men.

In what does man's pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; in Reason.

What acquirement exalts one being above another? Virtue; we spontaneously reply.

For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes: whispers Experience.

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Contents

Show all 26 chapters
  1. Front Matter
  2. Introduction
  3. Chapter 1
  4. Chapter 2
  5. Chapter 3
  6. Chapter 4
  7. Chapter 5
  8. Section 5.1
  9. Section 5.2
  10. Section 5.3
  11. Section 5.4
  12. Section 5.5
  13. Chapter 6: The Effect Which an Early Association of Ideas Has Upon the Character
  14. Chapter 7: Modesty Comprehensively Considered and Not As a Sexual Virtue
  15. Chapter 8
  16. Chapter 9
  17. Chapter 10
  18. Chapter 11
  19. Chapter 12
  20. Chapter 13
  21. Section 13.1
  22. Section 13.2
  23. Section 13.3
  24. Section 13.4
  25. Section 13.5
  26. Section 13.6

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About this edition

This free edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #3420, released 2002-09-01. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Essays, Letters & Speeches, British Literature, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Philosophy & Ethics.

Summary provided by Project Gutenberg (automatically generated).

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