The Rights of Men was Wollstonecraft's first overtly political work, as well as her first feminist work; as Johnson contends, "it seems that in the act of writing the later portions of Rights of Men she discovered the subject that would preoccupy her for the rest of her career."
Vindication of the Rights of Men foi a primeira obra abertamente política de Wollstonecraft, así como a súa primeira obra feminista; como sostén Johnson, «parece que no acto de escribir as porcións posteriores de Rights of Men descubriu o tema que a preocuparía polo resto da súa carreira».