Consider, Sir, dispassionately, these observations—for a glimpse of this truth seemed to open before you when you observed, “that to see one half of the human race excluded by the other from all participation of government, was a political phænomenon that, according to abstract principles, it was impossible to explain.” If so, on what does your constitution rest?
–A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
Mary Wollstonecraft
What is the central idea of this passage?
Truth comes from careful observations that are free from bias.
It is unexplainable that women cannot participate in government.
It is important that women play a role in writing a new constitution.