Befriending the Abuser

In her "Vindication of the Rights of Woman," Mary Wollstonecraft presents a plethora of convincing arguments for society's equal treatment of women. However, I find her charge to "become the friend, and not the humble dependent of (the) husband" in chapter two very interesting. The entire piece paints men as repulsively degrading and belittling to women, detailing how they have systematically stifled women's minds and opportunities for all of history. Wollstonecraft's phrasing of her goal with this amiable diction ("friend") leads me to believe she is somewhat missing the point that feminism has since evolved to express today. Women should not be viewed as equals so that they can stand beside their male counterparts; they should be viewed as equals so that they can stand ALONE from their male counterparts. Wollstonecraft's lingering grasp to the matrimonial and maternal societal roles of women demonstrates that, despite her bravery and revolutionary attitudes, even she could not fully foresee the progressive future in which we live today. From her insistence that women be educated for the sake of becoming more than simply objects of desire, I infer that she would be shocked to see how many women have embodied this plea, making their own livings and building their own lives without any help from men. Would she be proud of what women in today's society have become, or would she say we have taken it too far with the altogether dissolution of the traditional family structure? Plenty of contemporary feminists refuse to think of themselves as "friends" of the men holding them back from receiving equal treatment, and I am curious as to how Wollstonecraft would respond to such people.