Wollstonecraft for her ability to “awaken in the minds of her oppressed sex a sense of their degradation, and torestore them to the dignity of reason and virtue” (Ferguson 72). The AnalyticalReview praised her work for recognizing how men have turned women into sexobjects, and The Monthly Review supported her wishes for female reason(Ferguson 72).Her book continued to affect and change the feminist movement inEngland, and would have a large impact on the American feminists in the centuryto come. She intended her book to add to rising conflict of equal rights andeducation for women (Rood 393). Though she is considered a pre-Romanticauthor, her ideas on democracy and women’s rights were used by Romanticauthors, such as her daughter Mary Shelley, and son-in-law Percy Bysshe Shelley. For her time period, Wollstonecraft took a brave step to voice her opinion onmatters she only knew too well.Though she had admirers of her ideas, she also had criticism of her work. An article appearing in the Monthly Review six years after the publishing of AVindication of the Rights of Women criticized Wollstonecraft’s ideas. The articledisagreed with Wollstonecraft’s view of a woman ending an abusive marriage bywriting, “We think it a pernicious doctrine that a woman, when she deems herselfill-used by her husband, has a right to leave him” (Johnson 1). The author alsoincludes a warning to “beware of lessening the respect that is due to this legitimatebond of love” (Johnson 1). In 1792, the year A Vindication of the Rights of Women was published, The Critical Review wrote that Wollstonecraft’s reasoningmust be off, and that she should seek so-called womanly virtues, such as “delicacy, elegance, and sensibility” (Ferguson 73). The criticism was ample, and she evenreceived some from her own sister, the one whom she saved from an abusiverelationship. Eliza described a certain quote...
