When Reason offers her her sober light, if they (women] be really capable of acting like rational
creatures, let them not be treated like slaves; or, like the brutes who are dependent on the reason of man,
when they associate with him. ..
It appears to me necessary to dwell on these obvious truths, because females have been insulated, as it
were; and while they have been stripped of the virtues that should clothe humanity, they have been
decked with artificial graces that enable them to exercise a short lived tyranny. [Their) sole ambition is
to be fair, to raise emotion instead of inspiring respect; and this ignoble desire, like the servility in absolute
monarchies, destroys all strength of character. Liberty is the mother of virtue, and if women be, by their
very constitution, slaves, and not allowed to breathe the sharp invigorating air of freedom, they must ever
languish like exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws in nature. Let it also be remembered, that they are
the only flaw.
Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792
a. Explain the philosophical movement that provides the context for Wollstonecraft's essay.
b. Explain a document that might have stimulated Wollstonecraft to compose her essay.
c. Explain a likely historical event that provides the context for Wollstonecraft's essay.