Wollstonecraft Mary (1759–97), English author and feminist whose A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) is a central text of feminist philosophy. Her chief target is Rousseau: her goal is to argue against the separate and different education Rousseau provided for girls and to extend his recommendations to girls as well as boys. Wollstonecraft saw such an improved education for women as necessary to their asserting their right as ‘human creatures’ to develop their faculties in a way conducive to human virtue. She also wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), an attack on Edmund Burke’s pamphlet on the French Revolution, as well as novels, essays, an account of her travels, and books for children. See also FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY. M.At.