The Book of Agrippa honours the first literary work on the equality of the female gender. It was written by Henry (Henricus) Cornelius Agrippa. Indeed, the Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex, takes it much further than just equality.

Chapter I
1. Female Pre-eminence, OR THE Excellency of that Sex above the Male.
2. Almighty God, to whose efficacious Word all things owe their original,
3. Abounding in his own glorious Essence with infinite goodness and fecundity, did in the beginning Create Man after his own likeness,
4. Male and Female, created he them; the true distinction of which Sexes, consists merely in the different site of those parts of the body, wherein Generation necessarily requires a Diversity:
5. For both Male and Female he impartially endued with the same, and altogether indifferent form of Soul,
6. The Woman being possessed of no less excellent Faculties of Mind, Reason, and Speech, than the Man, and equally with him aspiring to those Regions of Bliss and Glory, where there shall be no exception of Sex.
7. For though at the last Trumpets universal Alarm, when our recollected bodies shall start up amazed, to find themselves released from their Prisons of Darkness, we may perhaps appear in our respective proper Sexes,
8. Yet shall we not then either need or make use of Sex, but are promised by him who is Truth itself, a Conversation resembling that of blessed Angels in Heaven.
9. Hence 'tis evident, that as to the essence of the Soul between Man and Woman, there can no Pre-eminence at all be challenged on either side,
10. But the same innate worth and dignity of both the Image of their Creator being stamped as fairly, and shiningly as brightly in one, as the other;
11. Whereas in all other respects the noble and delicate Feminine Race, does most to infinity excel that rougher, boisterous kind, the Male.
12. This may at first seem an odd Assertion, and extravagantly Paradoxical, but will appear a certain Truth, when we have proved it (which is our present undertaking) not with empty flourishes of words, or gaudy Paint of Rhetoric, nor with those vain Logical Devices, where-with Sophisters too frequently inveigle unwary understandings,
13. But by the Authority of the most Approved Authors, unquestioned Histories, and evident Reasons, as likewise with Testimonies of holy Writ, and Sanctions of both Civil and Canon Laws.
14. Since Names are signs of things, and that all matter presents itself to us clothed in words, the Learned have advised us in all Discourses, First,
15. To consider diligently the Notations or appellations of those things whereof we intend to Treat, which if we reduce to practice in our present Subject, we may observe, that Woman was made at first so much more excellent than Man,
16. By how much she had given her a Name more worthy than he; the word Adam, signifying but Earth, whereas Eve, is interpreted Life;
17. Whence it seems, Woman is no less to be preferred before Man, than Life itself before sordid and contemptible Earth.
18. Nor let any weak heads fancy this Argument lame or invalid, because from names it passes judgment on things,
19. Since it must be acknowledged, that the All-wise Contriver both of names and things, well knew the things before he imposed names on them;
20. And therefore (it being impossible he should be deceived) did undoubtedly bestow on them such fit and apposite names, as might best express their intrinsic Natures and Dignity.
21. Nor is it only the holy Tongue that intimates this Sex's Pre-eminence, the Latins too seem very express in asserting it, among whom Woman is named Mulier, quasi Melior,
22. As much as to say, Better, or more worthy than Man.
23. And in our English Language, although
24. Some little Wits at Woman rail and ban,
25. Swearing she's called so, quasi woe Man;
26. Yet such wain Derivation are to blame,
27. Since God himself Man's help meet name.
28. Women promote our joys, partake our woes,
29. But we men work our own, and their rethroves.
30. 'Tis too great a derogation from the known prudence and piety of our Ancestors, to imagine them as once so injurious and impious, as to brand this noble Sex with a Name, diametrically thwarting that Character which Heaven itself had given of its Nature.
31. We may with much more probability, (the only Compass to fail by in an Ocean of Etymologies) suppose the word, Woman, to be derived, quasi Woe man,
32. She being the Loadstone of Man's Desires, and the sole adequate Object of his Affections,
33. Whom he is to woe, court, and settle his Love on; or else from With Man, abbreviated in the pronunciation, intimating the need Man has of her presence and company, and his dull heartless condition without her.
34. Society is the Life of Life,
35. And Women the Life of Society,
36. Compared with whom all other pleasures and diversions are but flat and melancholy;
37. Whereof the Protoplast, even while he was in his state of Innocency, and had a Garden of pleasure for his Habitation, was not insensible; of whom thus a minor Poet,
38. Adam alone in Paradise did grieve,
39. And thought Eden a Desert without Eve,
40. Until God pitying his Lonesome State,
41. Crowned all his Wishes with a Lovely Mate.
42. No reason then had man to flight or flout her,
43. Who could not live in Paradise without her.
44. However if we shall not be allowed the privilege of contriving for the Honor of the Female Sex, such advantageous Etymologies,
45. Yet let us at least affirm from the mysterious Learning of the Cabalists, that the Woman's Name in the original Language, has a much nearer Affinity with the ineffable Tetragrammation, or sacred Name of the Divine Essence, than the Man's which bears no Resemblance there to either in Characters, Figure, or Number.
46. But waving (at present) this abstruser mode of proof, as a matter read by few, understood by fewer, and requiring a more ample Explication, than our leisure, no less than the Readers patience, can here allow of,
47. We proceed from words to things, and come to investigate and display Female Excellency, not barely from the Name, but in Reality from its intrinsic worth and proper Endowments;
48. For long Tangling about Nominals, while Substances fleet by unregarded, may argue some smattering in Grammar, or Sophistry, but no great stock of solid or useful Learning.