Clearly, the notion that women are meant to be companions to men and that their education and "breeding," as Defoe calls it, should prepare them for that, is outdated. Indeed, many advocates for women's rights would argue that the persistence of this attitude is at the heart of the struggle for women's equality today.

At the same time, reading the document in context, Defoe makes a number of arguments that were, for their time, progressive, and in that sense a modern supporter of women's rights might read him as a sort of kindred spirit, although one far removed in time and ideology. He dismisses those who regard women as intellectually inferior, arguing that, if they are, it is their education that has made them that way, not anything inherent to their sex:

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond; and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear. And ’tis manifest, that as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes; so education carries on the distinction, and makes some less brutish than others.

Indeed, at some points in the essay, Defoe posits that women may have more intellectual potential than men:

The capacities of women are supposed to be greater, and their senses quicker than those of the men; and what they might be capable of being bred to, is plain from some instances of female wit, which this age is not without. Which upbraids us with Injustice, and looks as if we denied women the advantages of education, for fear they should vie with the men in their improvements.

The implications of this argument are that much about gender is not inherent, but rather constructed and shaped by society. This is fundamental to the modern understandings of gender that are basic to arguments for women's rights. So some parts of Defoe, read in context, are advancing a fairly sophisticated and progressive view of gender roles and education. Many modern advocates of women's rights might recognize these in his essay.