![]() ![]() Wollstonecraft writes with astonishing verve. In the opening of the book, Wollstonecraft says, “Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices rather than to root them out.”Ī Vindication of the Rights of Woman aims to root out these prejudices through what is a fiercely freewheeling argument. Wollstonecraft’s Vindication was dedicated to Talleyrand it was also a strong critique of his thinking. It was a response to the Report on Public Instruction ( Rapport sur l’instruction publique) written in 1791 by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (whose name is usually shortened just to “Talleyrand”), which argued for publicly funded education but crucially insisted that only boys should be educated in the public sphere, while girls should be educated “in the paternal home.” ![]() Wollstonecraft was a remarkably versatile writer, whose work spanned philosophy, fiction, travel writing, and current affairs, but Vindication is perhaps her most influential and best-known work. This was the context in which Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, one of the major works in this history of feminist philosophy. ![]() ![]() But it was also a time of huge intellectual ferment, not only in France but also across the English Channel in Britain. The French Revolution brought violence, social change, and bloodshed. Today, we are moving on to a period of great upheaval in European history. Episode #4 of the course Women in philosophy by Will Buckingham ![]()
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