A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a 1792 book of feminist philosophy by Mary Wollstonecraft. Wollstonecraft argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and could be "companions" to their husbands. Instead of viewing women as ornaments or property, she maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men. Wollstonecraft was prompted to write the Rights of Woman by Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord's 1791 report to the French National Assembly which stated that women should only receive a domestic education; she commented to launch a broad attack against sexual double standards and to indict men for encouraging women to be excessively emotional. She wrote the Rights of Woman hurriedly in order to respond quickly; she died before completing a more thoughtful second volume. (This article is part of a featured topic: Mary Wollstonecraft.). Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_topics/Mary_Wollstonecraft> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1816: The French frigate Méduse ran aground off the coast of present-day Mauritania, with the survivors escaping on a makeshift raft, depicted in Théodore Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa (pictured). <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa> 1890: The U.S. Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, the first United States government action to limit monopolies. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act_of_1890> 1917: Amidst weeks of race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois, white residents burned sections of the city and shot black inhabitants as they escaped the flames. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_St._Louis_riots> 2013: A Mw 6.1 strike-slip earthquake killed at least 35 people and injured 276 others in the Indonesian province of Aceh on the northern end of Sumatra. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Aceh_earthquake> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: fray: 1. (transitive) 2. To rub or wear away (something); to cause (something made of strands twisted or woven together, such as cloth or rope) to unravel through friction; also, to irritate (something) through chafing or rubbing; to chafe. 3. (specifically) Of a deer: to rub (its antlers or head) against a tree, etc., to remove the velvet from antlers or to mark territory; also, to rub its antlers against (a tree, etc.) for that purpose. 4. To force or make (a path, way, etc.) through. 5. (obsolete) To bruise (someone or something); also, to take the virginity of (someone, usually a female person); to deflower. 6. (intransitive) 7. To become unravelled or worn; to unravel. 8. To rub. 9. (specifically) Of a deer: to rub its antlers against a tree, etc., to remove the velvet or to mark territory. 10. (figuratively) Of a person's mental strength, nerves, temper, etc.: to become exhausted or worn out. 11. (archaic or obsolete) A consequence of rubbing, unravelling, or wearing away; a fraying; also, a place where fraying has occurred. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fray> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:   All the tasks are in themselves small, but each one has to be carried out at its proper hour, and the day has far more tasks than hours. That is well; one would not want it to be different. But if we ever think, between classroom, archives, secretariat, consulting room, meetings, and official journeys — if we ever think of the freedom we possessed and have lost, the freedom for self-chosen tasks, for unlimited, far-flung studies, we may well feel the greatest yearning for those days, and imagine that if we ever had such freedom again we would fully enjoy its pleasures and potentialities.   --Hermann Hesse <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse>