The Condition of Women as a Consequence of the Historic, Economic, and Social Context

The relations between the genders have certainly seen profound change since 1792, when Mary Wollstonecraft published her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman which emphasized the disparity between the sexes, also before the law. This text has, over the centuries, become a cornerstone for the feminist movement, and is of particular relevance for us as well, as it was one of the first analyses to advance the hypothesis of a social and not a natural origin of the disparity between men and women. In this chapter, we analyse how this disparity is intertwined with the historical, social, and economic context.