I’ve been loving me some Mary Wollstonecraft of late. Her ‘Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ is terrific, you should read it (if you haven’t already). Some interesting quotes, other than the title:

” I, therefore, will venture to assert that till women are more rationally educated, the progress of human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks”

“Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adore its prison”

“Perhaps, if the existence of an evil being were allowed, who, in the allegorical language of Scripture, went about seeking whom he should devour, he could not more efficiently degrade the human character, than by giving a man absolute power”

“Man is active, full of movement, creative in politics, business and culture. The male shapes and moulds society and the world. Woman, on the other hand, is passive. She stays at home, as is her nature. She is matter waiting to be formed by the active male principle. Of course the active elements are always higher on any scale, and more divine. Man consequently plays a major part in reproduction; the woman is merely the passive incubator of his seed…the male semen cooks and shapes the menstrual blood into a new human being.”