Kirkham sees "Mansfield Park" as an attack on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's popular 1762 work, "Emile, or On Education", which depicted the ideal woman as fragile, submissive, and physically weaker than men. Rousseau stated: "So far from being ashamed of their weakness, they glory in it; their tender muscles make no resistance; they affect to be incapable of lifting the smallest burdens, and would blush to be thought robust and strong." The contemporary philosopher, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote at length against Rousseau's views in "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman". She also challenged followers of Rousseau like James Fordyce whose sermons had long been a part of a young woman's library.