Are Women Human? 237fulfi ll; but they are human duties, and the principles that should regulate
the discharge of them... must be the same” (77).^20 Wollstonecraft’s vindi-
cation of human rights for women explains the question in the title of this
essay, “Are Women Human?”^21 Her answer is yes and no. The question
must be answered in the negative on the basis of what she sees around
her, for women are systematically denied opportunities to become the free,
rational, independent, virtuous, dutiful, equal, human beings they were de-
signed by their maker to be. They are educated (in both senses) to become
“feminine, according to the masculine acceptation of the word” (204),
which defi nes it in opposition to all that Wollstonecraft associates with
being human (29 –30, 61, 204). This same question of whether women are
human can also be answered in the affi rmative, however, when the focus
shifts from their current degraded condition to their ontological potential,
when they are considered “in the grand light of human creatures, who, in
common with men, are placed on this earth to unfold their faculties” (30).
Society needs to be reformed to empower women to realize that potential.
As part of this process, the greatest human right women can be accorded is
the right to “obtain a character as a human being” (31).
As a group, men have made more progress at becoming human than
have women, and Wollstonecraft amusingly welcomes the (selective)
“masculinization” of women insofar as it involves “the attainment of those
talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character”
(30). This might cause contemporary feminists to worry that her very con-
ception of the human bears a masculine bias.^22 It is illuminating to note
in this context her refusal to call the understanding of her much admired
Mrs. Macaulay “masculine.” A mature, profound thinker, Macaulay “was
a proof that a woman can acquire judgment, in the full extent of the word”
(132). Further evidence that Wollstonecraft does not confound the mas-
culine with the human is that many men still fall far short of realizing
their human potential. She could, therefore, meaningfully pose the ques-
tion “are men human?” Major impediments to men actualizing their hu-
man potential include the power of aristocracy and inherited property,
which were targeted in her fi rst vindication and continue to be attacked
throughout the Rights of Woman (170). Wollstonecraft fervently hopes
the French Revolution will dissipate these toxic forces. But the Rights of
Woman identifi es the degraded state of women as another major obstacle
to men realizing their human potential. Men and women must be partners
in the realization of their shared humanity.^23 Anchoring her ontology of the
human in her theology also gives Wollstonecraft a way of aspiring toward a
gender-inclusive, rather than a gendered, conception of the human, for God