A Vindication of the Rights of Woman – With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft
Wollstonecraft put the rights of women in the context of social optimism; she argues that the minds of women are no different from the minds of men, but that men and women differ only in their bodies. As a result, she affirms universal human rights–females are in all the most important aspects the same as males, possessing the same souls, the same mental capacities and thus the same human rights. Therefore, she argues that a system based on one’s sex’s dependence is demeaning to everyone
Published: 1792