ABSTRACT
Mary Wollstonecraft is interested in the question of how rationally to define the role of women in a free and enlightened society, where behavior should be based on logic rather than on tradition. Wollstonecraft's starting point in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is the belief that the best way to run a society is to encourage individuals to use and develop their reason. She shares this belief with other Enlightenment and French Revolutionary thinkers, who argue this approach is necessary both for the progress of the society as a whole and for the personal fulfillment and virtue of each individual. Wollstonecraft argues that women do have some capacity to reason, even if she seems to see that capacity as less than that of men. In Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft uses the principles of Enlightenment reason to argue that progressive philosophers and conservative commentators alike were wrong to deny women freedom, education, and a political voice.
