establish himself as a gentleman farmer. Her views on marriage and the treatment of women in her society were no doubt heavily influenced by her father’s alcoholism and abusive treatment of her mother, who died in the spring of 1782. (History Guide, answers.com, SEP) But it was not her family circumstances alone which influenced her philosophies. Wollstonecraft was also strongly influenced by the principles of rationality and equality which were the touchstone of the Age of Enlightenment. (answers.com)

Modern feminists are sometimes wary of granting Wollstonecraft full credit as a feminist theorist because some of her personal conduct seemed contradictory to her views on both reason and equality. However, her Vindication on the Rights of Women, published in 1792, is a powerful work in support of women’s equality and education, and is considered to be the founding document of feminism. (answers.com) Wollstonecraft believed that women are equal to men in their capacity for Reason, that women and men are equally able to acquire knowledge, use good judgment, and make moral decisions for themselves. This was completely contradictory to the prevailing views of her time: that women were simply vessels for children, and attractive adornments in need of the protection and direction of men. It was, she argued, a lack of education or the entirely wrong kind of education which created and perpetuated the crippling stereotypes of women as helpless and simple-minded, really little more than children. She also noted that the frustration of a confined existence and limited education was the main reason many women of means became tyrants in their households, terrorizing servants and children in order to have some small sense of control over their own lives. (History Guide, answers.com, SEP