education are essential for liberty and freedom. The standard in society again favors men, because it is traditional for men to receive a formal education and formulate independent thought. Women are only taught domestic chores in order to please men. To Wollstonecraft, "reason is the simple power of improvement" (Wollstonecraft, 167). Without education, a woman is unable to achieve reason and therefore she is unable to improve. Reason is "simple" because it should be universal and natural for both men and women. Also, reason is a "power" because it is so essential to freedom. If women were educated and achieved a state of reason, they would be able to live equally within society as men. The Vindications is in part a direct response to arguments from Burke and Rousseau that dispel the need for equality between men and women. One point that Burke and Rousseau make to illustrate the inferiority of women involves the fact that female authors and political thinkers are incapable of original thought because women's texts so closely mimic a male predecessor. Wollstonecraft does not dispute the fact that women have yet to take an extreme or totally unique view in literature. She does respond with a reason and a solution to this situation. Wollstonecraft argues that every author uses a preceding text and author on which to base and elaborate. Because women have only recently begun to publish their thoughts, it follows that any model a woman could use would have to be written by a man. Wollstonecraft infers that each progressive work written by a woman will continually deviate from a male predecessor. Her argument follows the idea that as women receive a better education, they will be able to think independently and write works independent from men. Reason and independent thought are the foundations of virtue, which is why Wollstonecraft values the two liberties and argues that they are necessary for women. To Wollstonecraft, virtue is a natura...
