the account of the fall of man, were literally true, I could not believe what my reason told me was derogatory to the character of the Supreme Being.14
She discovers the only reason for women's state is their lack of education. In Chapter V she attacks several writers, especially Rousseau, who had written poor accounts of women. Wollstonecraft cites and comments on long passages from Emile. She is not unaware of Rousseau's relationships with women. In her chapter "On National Education," she states:
Who ever drew a more exalted female character than Rousseau? Though in the lump he constantly endeavoured to degrade the sex. And why was he thus anxious? Truly to justify to himself the affection which weakness and virtue had made him cherish for that fool Theresa. He could not raise her to the common level of her sex; and therefore he labored to bring woman down to hers. He found her a convenient humble companion, and pride made him determine to find some superiour virtues in the being whom he chose to live with; but did not her conduct during his life, and after his death, clearly show how grossly he was mistaken who called her a celestial innocent.15
She treats his description of Sophie with smug indignation, as when Rousseau describes Sophie's garb, "simple as it seems, was only put in its proper order to be taken to pieces by the imagination." To this she retorts, "Is this modesty? Is this a preparation for immortality?"16 She correctly accuses Rousseau of depicting not a wife and sensible mother, but a pleasing mistress.
Getting to the heart of Rousseau's error, she determines:
Men have superior strength of body, but were it not for mistaken notions of beauty, women would acquire sufficient to enable them to earn their own subsistence, the true definition of independence". Let us then, by being allowed to take the same exercise as boys, not only during infancy, but youth, arrive at perfection of boys, that we may know how far the natural superiority of man extends.17
She cautions that she has no desire to breed