Mary Wollstonecraft

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft looked at a society that praised women for being decorative and argued, with blistering clarity, that this was a moral failure - not of women, but of a system that denied them education and treated their minds as ornamental. Her case wasn't for admiration; it was for reason, independence, and the right to be taken seriously. One of the foundational texts of Western feminist thought, written before the word existed.
Still sharp, still uncomfortable for the arguments it demolishes, and still essential.