SOURCE: "Mary Wollstonecraft's 'Wild Wish': Confounding Sex in the Discourse on Political Rights," in Feminist Interpretations of Mary Wollstonecraft, edited by Maria J. Falco, University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996, pp. 61-84.

In the following essay, Gunther-Canada examines the two Vindications in order to show how Wollstonecraft disputed the gender distinctions that excluded women from the discourse of political rights.

A wild wish has just flown from my heart to my head, and I will not stifle it though it may excite a horse-laugh.—I do earnestly wish to see the distinction of sex confounded in society, unless where love animates the behavior.

—Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft's "wild wish" to confound the distinction of sex in society required challenging the whole tradition of political writing and transforming the entire discourse of political rights to include women. I suggest that Wollstonecraft would...