SOURCE: Griffin, Cindy L. “A Web of Reasons: Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and the Re-weaving of Form.” Communication Studies 47, no. 4 (winter 1996): 272-88.

In the following essay, Griffin proposes a nonlinear form of argument, based on the form of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which she believes will assist readers in recognizing the complexity of the work and the need to reconsider notions of effective rhetorical form.

Mary Wollstonecraft, recognized as one of the most influential feminists in history, strived to express her views in an age when the opinions and thoughts of women were seen as insignificant. At a time when the White, male, upper-class perspective was the dominant one and when women writers were scarce, Wollstonecraft emerged as a serious writer, philosopher, and advocate of the equality of women and men. Throughout her career in England in the late 18th...