Mary Wollstonecraft s 1792 Vindication of the Rights of Women is an incendiary attack on the place of women in 18th century society Often considered to be the earliest widely circulated work of feminism the book is a powerful example of what can be achieved by creative thinkers people who refuse to be bound by the standard ways of thinking or to see things through the same lenses that everyone else uses In the case of the Vindication Wollstonecraft s independent thinking went directly against the standard assumptions of the age regarding women During the seventeenth century and earlier it was an entirely standard point of view to consider women as largely speaking uneducable They were widely considered to be men s inferiors incapable of rational thought They not only did not need a rational education it was assumed that they could not benefit from one Wollstonecraft in contrast argued that women s apparent triviality was a direct consequence of society failing to educate them If they were not men s equals it was the fault of a society that refused to treat them as such So radical was her message that it would take until the 20th century for her views to become truly accepted An Analysis of Mary Wollstonecraft s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman The Macat Library I knew nothing about Mary Wollstonecraft before reading this analysis nor did I realize that the roots of modern feminism stretch all the way back to 1792 I ll be checking out her work when I get the chance An Analysis of Mary Wollstonecraft s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman The Macat Library