ABSTRACT
Mary Wollstonecraft was born in London in 1759. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman provoked controversy when it was first published in 1792. But in writing it, the eighteenth-century philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft laid out the foundations of modern feminist theory—and her arguments continue to inspire and provoke debate today. In Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft makes a passionate case for the equal rights of men and women to the freedom and education they need to live rational and independent lives. More than two hundred years later, Wollstonecraft's outraged but logically argued analysis of this process continues to provide a model for feminist and other political forms of analysis and argument. Wollstonecraft's arguments developed because she moved in radical political circles and was in contact with people involved in the French Revolution. The ideas of the Enlightenment—the eighteenth-century philosophical movement that sought to challenge tradition and religion and introduce rational cultural innovations, emphasizing liberty and individualism—inspired Wollstonecraft to investigate these problems.
