Activity: Read the excerpt three times from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman below. Take notes and/or annotate in the space below. Each time focus on a different historical analysis skill. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects

TO
M. Talleyrand-Périgord
Late Bishop of Autun

Pardon my frankness, but I must observe, that you treated [the subject of women's rights] in too cursory a manner [...]

Contending for the rights of woman [...] if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue;...If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; and the love of mankind[...]

But if women are to be excluded, without having a voice, from a participation of the natural rights of mankind, prove first, to ward off the charge of injustice and inconsistency, that they want reason, else this flaw in your NEW CONSTITUTION will ever show that man must, in some shape, act like a tyrant, and tyranny [...] will ever undermine morality [...]

I wish, sir, to set some investigations of this kind afloat in France; and should they lead to a confirmation of my principles when your constitution is revised, the Rights of Woman may be respected, if it be fully proved that reason calls for this respect, and loudly demands JUSTICE for one-half of the human race.

Source: Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792

Use the space below to jot down some notes for each focus of a reading.

First Read: Point of View on the Rights of Women

Second Read: Purpose for Writing

Third Read: How Audience Impacts Presentation of Ideas

Exit: Use your notes from each of the “close readings” to answer the questions below.

Identify the author's point of view concerning the rights of women.

Explain the author's purpose for writing about women's rights in the 18th century.

Explain how the audience affects the way the author presents their ideas.