Mary Wollstonecraft's homelife growing up was horrible; she had to deal with a drunk and abusive father while taking care of her siblings and mother. She decided to try writing in December of 1789, in response to Edmund Burke's writing on the French Revolution (Nov 1789) called Vindication of the Rights of Men. Many originally thought it was written by a man. Wollstonecraft attacked Burke by attacking his masculinity, calling him effeminate and unmanly. In that day and age, masculinity was synonymous with virtue and rationality. She claimed it was irrational to distinguish between the classes, in turn defending the Republic.
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), identifies 'woman' as a class of persons treated the same, whereas 'men' means a number of classes or all human beings. In the introduction, Wollstonecraft claims sexism is systematic and structural. Society, through education, trains women to not be virtuous, rational or manly, thus making them immoral and irrational. By trying to exert power in the ways allowed to them, their sexuality, women are undermining themselves and giving into the system.
In the first chapter, she says that professions with subordination induce immorality, such as teaching. Teachers have to give grades to students as an indication of their progress in class, this leads to students cheating because they are desperate to get better grades. Our society views cheating as immoral, thus teaching leads to immorality.
Wollstonecraft discusses the idea of no standing army in the second chapter. In the military, soldiers have to take orders. Both women and soldiers blindly commint to authority; in that way, women are equal to soldiers. They have both been educated into subordination; if we educate men the same way as we do women, they will be like women. Women are nurtured to be inferior, not naturally inferior. This is a social causation.
The third chapter berates woman for their role in their own oppression, claiming they aggrevate the situation. If we were to liberate women, they would have less power, but it would be real power. By playing on the weakness of men, women have more power. When women use their sexual power, they are idealized and fawned over by men, who in turn give them what they want so they will continue to please them. This gives them power and because they have little to begin with, most women aren't keen on relinquishing this imagined power so readily.
"It is time to effect a revolution in female manners." Wollstonecraft is saying that it's time for women to work for their equality. This was the first time a plan was proposed for social reform of both sexes, rather than just women or just men. Virtue equates to honesty and transparency for Wollstonecraft. Her word is gold; she will do as she said she would.
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