ABSTRACT
Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman argues that an enlightened Christian society must recognize the essential humanity and rights of women. Wollstonecraft makes the groundbreaking, and at the time contentious, assertion that since moral reason is the one and only route to virtue, this moral reason must be available to all humans, both male and female. Even if there are differences between the bodies of men and women, these differences are of minor significance, and do not naturally lead to what were seen as stereotypically feminine personality traits, such as passivity, cunning, or attention to dress and gossip. Wollstonecraft was aware, though, that by using emotional language, she risked undermining a key claim: that women are capable of reason. Even readers who agree with Wollstonecraft's idea that true knowledge can only be reached through the free use of reason might see her use of passionate rhetorical tricks, like metaphor, as manipulative or coercive.
