Wisdom Comes with Freedom

by Mary Wollstonecraft

In France or Italy have the women confined themselves to domestic life? Though they have not hitherto had a political existence, yet have they not illicitly had great sway, corrupting themselves and the men with whose passions they played? In short, in whatever light I view the subject, reason and experience convince me that the only method of leading women to fulfill their peculiar duties is to free them from all restraint by allowing them to participate in the inherent rights of mankind.

Make them free, and they will quickly become wise and virtuous, as men become more so, for the improvement must be mutual, or the injustice which one-half of the race are obliged to submit to retorting on their oppressors, the virtue of men will become worm-eaten by the insect whom he keeps under his feet.