Wollstonecraft argued in "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792) that women's apparent intellectual and moral inferiority results from their exclusion from serious education, not from any natural incapacity, and that reason and virtue are universal human capacities not properly divided by sex. She directly criticized Rousseau's "Emile" for prescribing an education for Sophie that trained women only to please men, arguing instead for women's education as rational beings and, implicitly, future citizens.
Intellectual setting
Wollstonecraft wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" amid the ferment of the French Revolution, directly extending Enlightenment arguments for natural rights and rational autonomy - which she had already applied to class in "A Vindication of the Rights of Men" - to the situation of women.
Key ideas
Education as the remedy for women's subordination
Wollstonecraft argued that women's perceived weakness of mind and character stemmed from a corrupting education that trained them for ornamental dependence rather than reason, and that proper education would reveal women's equal capacity for virtue and rational judgment.
Critique of Rousseau's gendered education
Wollstonecraft directly attacked Rousseau's "Emile" for designing Sophie's education around pleasing men rather than developing her reason, arguing this arbitrarily denied women the same rational and moral development due to any human being.
Legacy
Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Woman" is a foundational text of Western feminist philosophy, directly influencing John Stuart Mill's "Subjection of Women" and later generations of feminist political thought.