abilities and virtues exact respect.

In a treatise, therefore, on female rights and manners, the works
which have been particularly written for their improvement must not
be overlooked; especially when it is asserted, in direct terms,
that the minds of women are enfeebled by false refinement; that the
books of instruction, written by men of genius, have had the same
tendency as more frivolous productions; and that, in the true style
of Mahometanism, they are only considered as females, and not as a
part of the human species, when improvable reason is allowed to be
the dignified distinction, which raises men above the brute
creation, and puts a natural sceptre in a feeble hand.

Yet, because I am a woman, I would not lead my readers to suppose,
that I mean violently to agitate the contested question respecting
the equality and inferiority of the sex; but as the subject lies in
my way, and I cannot pass it over without subjecting the main
tendency of my reasoning to misconstruction, I shall stop a moment
to deliver, in a few words, my opinion. In the government of the
physical world, it is observable that the female, in general, is
inferior to the male. The male pursues, the female yields--this is
the law of nature; and it does not appear to be suspended or
abrogated in favour of woman. This physical superiority cannot be
denied--and it is a noble prerogative! But not content with this
natural pre-eminence, men endeavour to sink us still lower, merely
to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated
by the adoration which men, under the influence of their senses,
pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts,
or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement
in their society.