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Appeal of one half the human race, women, against the pretensions of the other half, men: to retain them in political, and hence in civil and domestic, slavery; in reply to a paragraph of Mr. Mill's celebrated "Article on government"
Philosopher Anna Wheeler was self-educated, reading Diderot, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Hays. Known as the "Goddess of Reason," she was ideologically aligned with French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. After leaving an abusive marriage with an alcoholic husband, she was critical of marriage and proposed cooperative community living as an alternative. In 1825 she collaborated with William Thompson on the socialist feminist Appeal. Thompson considered the text their joint property. Wheeler was among the first women to lecture publicly on the “Rights of Women.” She wrote using the pseudonym Vlasta, publishing articles on subjects such as the enslavement of women for men’s sensual pleasure and advocating the use of contraception. Wheeler's great-granddaughter was Lady Constance Lytton, the comrade of Emmeline Pankhurst. -
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
When Edmund Burke attacked the French Revolution in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Wollstonecraft joined other English radicals, including Catharine Macaulay and Thomas Paine, in writing responses calling for reform and arguing for religious and civil liberties. Her Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) was particularly successful. She followed up with A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)--another bestseller and quickly translated into multiple languages. In it she asserted that women have the same fundamental rights as men and only appear to be inferior because of their inferior education. -
Woman not inferior to man, or, A short and modest vindication of the natural right of the fair-sex to a perfect equality of power, dignity, and esteem with the men
An unidentified philosopher writing under the pseudonym “Sophia” wrote this radical work asserting that women are superior to men in all ways. She argues that women’s superiority could be proven if women were given equal education. This is a first edition. The 1745 edition (also in the collection) includes a counterargument and rebuttal. Both might have been written by “Sophia.” -
Some Reflections upon Marriage
English philosopher Mary Astell was one of the earliest feminist philosophers in the modern age. In this work she provides a witty but harsh critique of women’s disadvantages within contemporary marriage, famously asking, “if all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves?” -
Les femmes illustres, ou, Les harangues heroïques
French philosopher Madeleine de Scudéry was a prolific writer. Her novels and books were published under her brother’s name. She embraced philosophical dialogue as a means to explore questions of gender, sexuality, education, and power. Scudéry was dismissed by her male contemporaries, and later critics focused on her salons rather than her philosophical contributions. Her life, work, and diatribes defending women’s right to exercise political authority are receiving new consideration by modern scholars. The strong image on this engraved title page certainly reflects her response to the querelle des femmes. -
La nobiltà et l'eccellenza delle donne, co' diffetti et mancamenti de gli huomini
Venetian intellectual and philosopher Lucrezia Marinella wrote a bold response to Giuseppe Passi’s misogynist Defects of Women (1599). Arguing that women’s moral superiority leads to their intellectual superiority, she demanded freedom, power, and equality for women. In this expanded edition, she traces misogyny in intellectual traditions back to Aristotle and attributes the motives of misogynist writers to a desire to exclude women from public life.
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