Mary Astell Proposal to the Ladies

Summary
 essay written by the British author Mary Astell
 appeared in two parts. The first was published in 1694, while the
second, A Serious Proposal, Part II, appeared in 1697.
 In the essay, Astell presents an argument for the uniform education of
the women of the time in both religious and secular fields.
 The primary purpose of A Serious Proposal to the Ladies is to argue
for advancing women’s education. However, Astell also
advocates for extending the work opportunities available to
women as well as a system of higher education exclusively for
women of the court.
 She makes the case that, in addition to making women more
productive members of society, education also makes them more
moral people and more likely to be deserving of going to Heaven
according to Christian principals.
 Astell begins by outlining different modes of intelligence, defining the
differences between faith, science, opinion, moral certainty, and
sensation. She suggests that some of these types of intelligence
require more knowledge to attain, and thus many women are denied
access to these higher orders of thinking due to inadequate education.
 She goes on to make the case that women in England are educated
informally and subsequently, they do not gain information in a
systematic fashion.
 This tends to produce women who know a little about many topics but
do not have scholarly mastery of any one subject.
 She recommends creating a place where women can be educated in a
more formal way so that they gain a relatively large amount of
knowledge about a relatively few number of important topics. She also
maintains that from this strong foundation women can go on to
become scholars in any topic they desire.
 Astell outlines an idea for a school system in which women are
educated with only other women as their teachers and classmates. To
accomplish this, she wants to establish a system of monastery schools
where women are sequestered from men during their school-age
years.
 She proposes that without the distraction of having men around,
women will be able to concentrate more intensely on their studies and
focus on refining their souls and becoming more moral people.
 To Astell, education is an essential component of being a good
Christian. Knowledge allows people to identify moral conundrums and
reason their way to the best possible solution.
 Without being able to understand their experiences and make
informed choices, women do not have the same opportunities as men
to get into Heaven.
 She argues that God gave women the ability to become intelligent, so
it is wrong to not make use of that ability.
 She supports this position by drawing from Descartes’ writings on
mind-body duality. If women, like men, have the ability to reason,
then women should not be treated poorly or disallowed the right to
exercise their skills.
 However, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies is not solely concerned with
spiritual matters. It also makes a strong argument for the material
gains equal education affords to women.
 She also suggests that work opportunities beyond being a wife or a
nun should be opened to women.
 If women become educated, it would be wrong to deny them the
ability to apply their knowledge either through advanced scholarship or
the opportunity to do useful work for society.
 Astell does not try to argue that both sexes are equal in every
individual capacity.
 She says that just as men seem to be more talented than women in
some areas, women are also more talented than men in other areas.

Astell’s Biography
 Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England in 1666
 received no formal education during her formative years, which was
standard for women of the time and place.
 she was educated informally by an uncle who was an ex-clergyman in
the Church of England. Astell’s uncle ensured that she was well-versed
in both religious scholarship and secular philosophy, primarily the
writings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
 When her last living family member passed away in 1688, Mary moved
to London and joined a circle of educated, literary women, including
 Lady Mary Chudleigh, Elizabeth Thomas, Judith Drake, Elizabeth
Elstob, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
 Encouraged by her new circle of acquaintances, Astell began to
develop the ideas that would become A Serious Proposal to the Ladies.
 In addition to her pioneering feminist writings, Astell was well-
respected in her day as a philosopher and rhetorician.
 She was famous for her willingness to debate both men and women
publicly. During the course of her debates and defenses of A Serious
Proposal to the Ladies, Astell developed a new method for negotiating
and defending the position of women in society. Rather than argue
from a historical precedent, as her predictors had attempted, she
approached the question of women’s roles and potential with a
philosophical bent, drawing support from Descartes and other
contemporaries in the world of philosophy
 Mary Astell is often considered England’s first feminist because of her
writing which questioned gender politics and gender roles of the late
seventeenth century and early eighteenth century.

Historical view at that time

1. In the 1600’s women had very few opportunities outside the home,
and even the wealthiest girls were often given only a courtly education
(an education that consisted mostly in studying classic literature, art,
instruments, and dancing). In other words, women were only taught
things that would make them useful wives
2. Men have asserted that women were so dependent on their husbands
because they were only fit for life in the home and not in the
workforce, but Astell argued that educated and capable women were
completely possible but in limiting what a girl learned, you limited her
independence and usefulness to society.
3. It had previously been assumed that women were inherently inferior to
men, and therefore only suitable to be the property of their husbands,
and the caretakers of their homes. And later, they would teach the
same thing to their daughters, thus continuing a vicious circle.
4. Girls were told that their purpose in life was to be attractive enough to
attract a high-quality suitor who could provide for them.
5. It was believed that girls were inherently weaker and less competent
than men and it was Astell's mission to prove that false assumption
wrong in a way that was easy to understand.
 What Astell proved in her essay
 She shows that ignorant and dependent women are a product of a
system that was created by men to oppress them.
 She ascribes the low productivity of women to men, because it is
males who try to prevent women from gaining ‘liberal Education.’

Astell’s argument was based on several fundamental

points:
 Firstly, women had as much potential as men but were being held
back by society’s expectations of them and by the amount of education
and opportunities they received.

 Secondly, women are often treated as fundamentally sinful creatures,

but most of their sins come out of ignorance, and increased education
would actually make women more faithful to their religion.

 Finally, she emphasized that women weren’t living up to their full

potential and could be taking steps to rectify this.