Prompt for "A Vindication of the Rights of Women"

Students reading Wollstonecraft's arguments need a framework for what England was like in 1792. As we read on page 169, "Wollstonecraft's views were conspicuously radical at a time when women had no political rights; were limited to a few lowly vocations as servants, nurses, governesses, and petty shopkeepers; and were legally nonpersons who lost their property to their husbands at marriage and were incapable of instituting an action in the courts of law." We take many of her arguments for granted now, but like so much of what we have been reading, they were revolutionary at the time. Wollstonecraft held a mirror up to society, and she paid a heavy price for doing so.

For Tuesday, I would like you to think about how far we have come in the past 200+ years. Which of Wollstonecraft's arguments seem outdated? Which of them seem just as relevant, perhaps even more relevant, to our own time?

I'll see you (and copies of your explication) on Tuesday.