A Vindication of the Rights of Men was published in 1790 and was written by Mary Wollstonecraft in response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. In his political pamphlet, Burke argued against the French Revolution and advocated conservatism, monarchy, and religion. This was the time of the political pamphlet, with political writers such as Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine and Wollstonecraft herself contributing.
A Vindication of the Rights of Men challenges many of the arguments put forward in Burke's pamphlet and instead attacks the aristocracy, monarchy, and nepotism. With this pamphlet, she not only criticizes Burke's ideology, but also his method and use of language. For example, one heavily criticized passage of Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France is where he describes an attack on the Queen of France in a very melodramatic and exaggerated way. This passage and Burke's writing style have been generally denounced by critics, including Wollstonecraft, who looks at this passage from an interesting perspective. Instead of focusing on Burke's elaborate use of language, she analyses how it is sexist and gendered. As such, this text has suggestions of Wollstonecraft's later text A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which has made her name as an early feminist writer.
In addition to criticizing Burke's arguments and rhetoric, she also posits arguments supporting her own republican ideologies. At the time Wollstonecraft was writing there was a huge debate about whether the United Kingdom should have a monarchy or a republic, and she supported the latter. One of her arguments is that at the time there was an emerging middle-class, which challenged the ruling aristocracy and demanded change. She accuses Burke of being stagnant and static for his conservative and traditional ways of thinking, and instead advocates reform. Overall, this text is a radical and liberal response to conservative thinking.
