"The Rights of Woman" is a poem by Anna Laetitia Barbauld that is often interpreted as a response to Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", though the poem was published posthumously. The poem is in agreement with Wollstonecraft until the last two lines, in which Barbauld clearly differentiates herself from Wollstonecraft, ending with " In Nature's school, by her soft maxims taught/That separate rights are lost in mutual love". This is often interpreted as Barbauld's anti-feminist reaction to Wollstonecraft; however, Barbauld's activism in terms of women's rights in politics and education would seem to counter that theory. An alternative interpretation is that the poem elucidates problems that could occur in the fight for women's rights and warns against making men out as the enemy and also against letting passion override logic and rationale in the fight for and clarification of women's rights.
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