Radical Imagination (03:39)

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Contemporaries included William Pitt, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth. Mary Wollstonecraft envisioned a world where men and women were equal. Important friendships included Frances Blood and the Clares.

Radical Thinkers (02:44)

"Thoughts on the Education of Daughters" championed tenderness, respect, and freedom. Joseph Johnson provided a refuge for William Godwin, Thomas Malthus, Thomas Paine, and William Blake. Thomas Jefferson and Honore Mirabeau wrote "Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen."

"A Vindication of the Rights of Women" (04:54)

Wollstonecraft wrote that reason and love should be the basis for society. Gilbert Imlay gave her a child and American citizenship. Wollstonecraft died after giving birth to Mary Shelley who wrote "Frankenstein."

"Herland" (05:22)

Charlotte Perkins Gillman admired Wollstonecraft and also experienced a loveless childhood. The utopian novel argued that gender is a social construct. The activist urged women to boycott political parties because they couldn't achieve enough.

Fighting Gender Inequality (05:52)

Shulamith Firestone argued that abortion and equal pay campaigns were distractions from the origins of sexual inequality. The activist imagined a world where reproductive technology eroded gender distinctions. Facebook changed its gender binary to offer 70 different terms to describe their orientation.