This book is way too hard to read. It is reputed to be one of the most important books ever written, but I simply could not get through it. The language is extremely convoluted and reads as though it has been written for the chardonnay set. It would be difficult for the average layperson to read. I have been reading this book for months and I am not even half-way through. I think now is the time to give up! ( )

I do not know how anyone can give this book a less than 5 star rating. This is the first feminist monograph and it is eloquant and easy to read. This is a classic, a must read and must own for anyone who is interested in women's studes, education, and feminism. I loved this book. And at the end there is a little section where scholars debate the book. I highly recommend this to everyone. I absolute loved it. ( )

link: http://eska-rina.livejournal.com/4157... ( )

Two chapters from A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN from the founder member of the modern feminist movement. The next book of this kind,Germaine Greer's THE FEMALE EUNUCH,would not be published for another 200 years.

Whatever other people say about its eloquence, I will have to admit I found it hard going. Wollstonecraft's writing style is very convoluted and overblown. She clearly wrote it in a passion. Try her "Letters from Sweden", though, they are great.

Wollstonecraft waxes eloquent in defending the intellectual and spiritual capacity of women, but was somehow still a woman who made a bad choice about who to love and wasn't quite liberated enough to openly give birth to an illegitimate child. All that is just a footnote. The body of the text is a sound piece of philosophical discourse that deserves its place on a shelf with the classics. ( )

The first major feminist work in English.