Mary Wollstonecraft, in her Vindication, makes clear her position: an education which recognizes her duty to educate her own children, to be an equal partner with her husband in the family, and which recognizes that woman, like man, is a creature of both thought and feeling: a creature of reason. Wollstonecraft is establishing the main guidelines for the future liberal feminist movement, which sees access, education, and the changes in the laws necessary to achieve those the key elements in the struggle for women’s equality. Give women a level playing field, and see what they can measure up to. The practical program involves letting women into the existing corridors occupied by men, but no radical restricting of social and political institutions.
