A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, is a 1792 feminist essay written by British philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), and is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy.
In this essay, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the eighteenth century who did not believe women should receive a rational education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men.