Mary Wollstonecraft Although she was born in 1759, Mary Wollstonecraft is hailed as the first modern feminist (Cucinello pp). Her "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," published in 1792, is the first great feminist treatise (Wollstonecraft pp). Wollstonecraft preached that women must be strong in mind and body and that sentimentality was symbolic with weakness (Wollstonecraft pp).

Born to a "gentry" farmer and an aloof mother, it is said she began protesting at an very young age, when her brother received that favored position when it was Mary who would protect her mother from the abusive father (Cucinello pp). For a number of years Wollstonecraft worked as a governess before deciding to make the unconventional career choice of becoming an editor and journalist (Cucinello pp). She wrote the "Thoughts on the Education of Daughters" in 1786 and in 1790 published "A Vindication of the Rights of Man" "as a response to the goals brought fourth by the French revolution" (Cucinello pp). But it was "Vindication of the Rights of Women" that propelled her to fame concerning feminist issues such as the "legal, economic and educational disabilities of women" (Cucinello pp). She believed in national education "where boys and girls, the rich and poor, should meet together. And to prevent any of the distinctions of vanity, they should be dressed alike, and all obliged to submit to the same discipline, or leave the school" (Wollstonecraft pp). Wollstonecraft believed that the equal rights applied to men should extend to women, that women had the right to an education, and that society could only progress when both sexes were equally educated (Cucinello pp). She urged women to let go of their old emotional stereotypes and view education as the means of achieving a place in society (Cucinello pp). She writes that woman is

"always represented as only created to see through a gross medium, and to take things on trust. But, dismissing these fanciful theories, and considering woman as a whole, let it be what it will, instead of a part of man, the inquiry is whether she has reason or not. If she...

Ahead of her time, she believed that true independence for a woman could not be achieved through marriage, of which Mary claimed was nothing more than "legalized prostitution" (Cucinello pp). "If woman be allowed to have an immortal soul," Mary wrote, "she must have, as the employment of life, an understanding to improve" (Wollstonecraft pp). And to improve, a woman is "incited by present gratification to forget her grand destination, Nature is counteracted, or she was born only to procreate and die" (Wollstonecraft pp). Ironically, that is exactly how Wollstonecraft died in 1797, while giving birth to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, "later to become Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein" (Cucinello pp).
Wollstonecraft was greatly influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment as well as the French and American revolution, and was surrounded herself with intellectuals such as Paine, Burke, Rousseau, and Voltaire (Cucinello pp). Of Rousseau, she wrote, "Who ever drew a more exalted female character than Rousseau?" (Wollstonecraft pp). Patrice Cucinello points out that it is important to remember that the French Revolution began in 1789, and for the next half century, Europe was terrified of an another upheaval, thus, progressive and revolutionary ideas such as Paine's and Wollstonecraft's were viewed as dangerous to the very foundations of society and many feared that these "unconventional thoughts would spread to other nations across Europe" (Cucinello pp).

Cucinello writes that Wollstonecraft's work is a cornerstone in women's rights and the foundation for modern feminism, which sees education as the key to…