Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, precursor of modern feminism
An English thinker, one of the founders of modern feminism. In an age when Enlightenment thinkers proclaimed "all are born equal" yet excluded half of humanity — women — she rose to ask: why do "human rights" not include women? In 1792 she published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, arguing that women are not born inferior but merely deprived of education; give women equal education and they too can become rational, independent people. This was the first work to argue systematically for women’s rights, lighting the first lamp for two centuries of the women’s movement.
The French Revolution proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and Paine wrote Rights of Man — yet these "men" were nearly all, by default, males. Wollstonecraft asked sharply: since reason belongs to all, by what right are women excluded from rights? Her Vindication carried the logic of "equality" through to the end for the first time — if all are born equal, that must include women.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.