“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.”

It’s 1792, and Mary Wollstonecraft is RAGING. Here she goes on the rampage, railing against Burke in an essay about the Rights of Men and tearing Rousseau (and society) a new one about the Rights of Women for, like, a novel-length diatribe. And it’s so hardcore. This is heavy metal.

Yes, it’s repetitive and overlong and grows tedious at time, and not everything translates perfectly to 21st century feminism, I’m not surprised. But man, someone resurrect Mary Wollstonecraft to fight the fight now? She’d have so much to say about the flaws of the modern beauty industry alone, I swear. Anyway, so much of what she says is radical and still way too relevant. She talks about equality in education and the fucked-up-ness of separating children and forcing girls to play with dolls and being raised to be “slaves” to their husbands, essentially weak simpering objects of lust designed “to please.” This is like that Barbie movie monologue but SO MUCH ANGRIER. In the background she finds time to talk class and consider the family structure and the problems of hereditary wealth and I’m so very interested in learning more about her life now. Also, like. Imagine being born Mary Shelley, and finding out your dead mother was this RADICAL ???? It’s so much to think about.