Mary Wollstonecraft, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
I will take the second half of your question first, because it presupposes what I deny: that there is a difference to be denied. I do not deny that men have the greater bodily strength. I grant that it seems to give man a natural superiority over woman, and that this is the only solid basis on which the superiority of the sex can be built.1 What I insist on is that the knowledge and the virtue of the two sexes should be the same in nature, if not in degree, and that women, as rational creatures and not merely moral ones, ought to acquire human perfections by the same means as men, instead of being educated like a fanciful kind of half being, one of Rousseau's wild chimeras.1
Whether the faculties differ in their native force I do not pretend to settle. I say that time alone can determine whether the want of understanding in women arises from a physical or an accidental weakness, and that I lay no great stress on the few women who have risen, since I only contend that men placed in similar situations have acquired a similar character.2
So the charge of faith cuts against my accusers. The faith is theirs, who have decided beforehand what nature made, and who point at the product of an education as if it were the raw material. Burke's Enquiry is the cleanest instance. He teaches that littleness and weakness are the very essence of beauty, and that Nature, giving women beauty in the supereminent degree, commanded them not to cultivate the virtues that might excite respect and interfere with the pleasing sensations they were created to inspire.3
Follow that reasoning out and it proves that one half of the human species have not souls.3 That is the difference-respecting doctrine in its honest form, and I will not have it called a truth about nature when it is a convenience of the senses. The love of the Deity must be love of perfection, and not compassion for weakness; so a woman made only to be loved for her weakness is shut out of her preparation for a more exalted state.4
As for whether I would flatten women into men: I address the middle class, who appear to be in the most natural state, and I treat my sex as rational creatures instead of flattering their fascinating graces and viewing them as if in perpetual childhood.5 Susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment and refinement of taste are, I say, almost synonymous with epithets of weakness; beings who are only the objects of pity and of that kind of love which has been called its sister will soon become objects of contempt.5
I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes, but reasonable creatures.2 The experiment of educating them to strength of mind and body has never been tried, and until it has, no one may pronounce what a woman's nature permits. I ask only that it be made, and that the verdict wait for the evidence.
Reason is the same faculty in every human creature, virtue is the same excellence, and what is called the feminine character is the effect of an education that teaches girls from infancy that beauty is their sceptre and cunning their defence.6 Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it and there will be an end to blind obedience.7 She wishes women to have power not over men but over themselves; she wishes to see them neither heroines nor brutes but reasonable creatures.
The duties of mother and wife are real and she honours them, but they are performed well only by a rational being and badly by a plaything; and a nation that educates half its members to please corrupts the other half into tyrants.89
I will allow that bodily strength seems to give man a natural superiority over woman; and this is the only solid basis on which the superiority of the sex can be built. But I still insist, that not only the virtue, but the KNOWLEDGE of the two sexes should be the same in nature, if not in degreeA Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Whether this arises from a physical or accidental weakness of faculties, time alone can determine... I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes; but reasonable creatures.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
You may have convinced them that littleness and weakness are the very essence of beauty... you have clearly proved that one half of the human species, at least, have not soulsA Vindication of the Rights of Men
the love of the Deity, which is mixed with the most profound reverence, must be love of perfection, and not compassion for weakness.A Vindication of the Rights of Men
My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their FASCINATING graces... those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education. It is, however, sufficient for my present purpose to assert, that, whatever effect circumstances have on the abilities, every being may become virtuous by the exercise of its own reason; for if but one being was created with vicious inclinations--that is, positively bad-- what can save us from…A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Women deluded by these sentiments, sometimes boast of their weakness, cunningly obtaining power by playing on the WEAKNESS of men; and they may well glory in their illicit sway, for, like Turkish bashaws, they have more real power than their masters: but virtue is sacrificed to temporary gratifications, and the respectability of life to the triumph of an hour.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfil; but they are HUMAN duties, and the principles that should regulate the discharge of them, I sturdily maintain, must be the same.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
The argument that founded feminism and that feminism has argued with since, over whether equality so grounded asks women to become men; the texts answer the question more carefully than the quotations.