What is A Vindication of the Rights of Woman?
{{italictitle}} [[File:Vindication1b.jpg|thumb|right|Title page from the first American edition of ''Rights of Woman'']] '''''A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects''''' is a [[book]] written by [[Mary Wollstonecraft]] in 1792. Today, it is known as one of the first books about [[feminism]]. In the [[18th century]], some people thought that women should not get a [[wikt:formal|formal]] [[education]]. Wollstonecraft wrote this work as a reply to them. She says that women should have an education that fits their position in [[society]]. She says women are very important to the nation, because it is women who usually educate their children. She says that an educated woman can also be companions to their husbands, rather than just uneducated wives. Wollstonecraft does not see women as [[ornament]]s to society, or [[property]] to be traded in [[marriage]]. She argues that they are human beings, and therefore deserve the same basic rights men have. In 1791, [[Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord]] wrote a report to the French [[National Constituent Assembly|National Assembly]]. In this report, he argued, that women should only receive a very basic education. Wollstonecraft used this report to write her reply. She also led an attack on the sexual [[double standard]]s the society of the day had. She also [[Indictment|indicted]] men for encouraging women to indulge in lots of emotion. Wollstonecraft wrote the ''Rights of Woman'' quickly so that she could directly respond to ongoing events; she wanted to write a more thoughtful second volume, but died before doing so. Wollstonecraft calls for equality between the sexes in particular areas of life, such as morality, but she does not write that men and women are equal in all things. This has made it difficult to classify Wollstonecraft as a modern feminist as they believe men and women are equal in all things. She could not use either the word or the concept of ''feminism'', because they were only developed later. Today, ma