Are Women Human? 241will make them more effective wives and mothers, so a change in what is
notionally the public sphere will have signifi cant and salutary ramifi cations
for so-called private life.
Wollstonecraft also challenges any strict public-private separation when
portraying the family as the fi rst school of citizenship (Abbey, 1999, 86 –
87; Botting 2006), claiming that “if you wish to make good citizens, you
must fi rst exercise the affections of a son and a brother.... Few, I believe,
have had much affection for mankind, who did not fi rst love their parents,
their brothers, sisters, and even the domestic brutes, whom they fi rst played
with” (193). Her denial of any strong public-private separation is also en-
capsulated in her repeated use of the term “tyranny” to attack arbitrary
power wherever it takes hold. She condemns tyranny in spheres including
and beyond the public-political one —be it tyranny of men over women; of
women over men; of parents over children and servants;^26 of children over
servants; or teachers over children.
The women’s rights as human rights movement resists any idea that
women must become like men in order to enjoy the promise and protec-
tions of rights. Observing that “the equality... is not premised on being
the same as men,” MacKinnon identifi es, as we have seen, “a concept of
equality as lack of hierarchy rather than sameness or difference” (2006,
108). This, too, resonates with the Rights of Woman’s attempt to recon-
cile sex difference with the realization of a common humanity for both
genders. Wollstonecraft never suggests that women should become iden-
tical to men, referring instead to their particular duties. For her as for
MacKinnon, equality with men demands not sameness but the absence
of hierarchy in their relations. Or more specifi cally, in Wollstonecraft’s
case, it is, as suggested above, the removal of arbitrary hierarchy, of dis-
tinctions that violate human equality without some rational justifi cation.
This ideal informs her vision not just for gender relations but also for all
social relations.
MacKinnon underlines the appeal to “a single standard of human dignity
and entitlement” (MacKinnon 2006, 108) in the articulation of women’s
rights as human rights. Okin and Ackerly also pay attention to the notion
of dignity, observing that “most strands of international feminism have...
coalesced around... the basic feminist premise that all human beings,
female and male, are of equal worth and are therefore equally worthy of
dignity and respect” (Okin and Ackerly 1999, 136, see also 137, 140 –141,
144, 157). Wollstonecraft insists upon equal treatment for men and women,
with the same moral and political standards being applied to both. She also
emphasizes human dignity and respect. Affording women the same oppor-