16 of History's Most Rebellious Women
Mary Wollstonecraft, Britain
In the male-dominated, hierarchical society of 18th century Britain, Mary Wollstonecraft was a radical who publicly put forward the unprecedented claim that women were more than possessions. She went head to head with one of the most prominent political thinkers of the time, Edmund Burke. And in her two most famous works, A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1791), she demonstrates a strong political voice, defending the rights of women as equal to those of men. In Wollstonecraft's opinion, the way in which girls were brought up, to be "empty-headed play things," contributed to a morally bankrupt society, ungoverned by reason. It was in this view of the world that Wollstonecraft showed her true colors as one of the earliest and most influential rebellious women. —Elizabeth Tyler