Mary Astell: The First English Feminist? Women, Education and the 17th Century

In 1664, the poet Abraham Cowley asked, with barely concealed alarm, whether women were now going to challenge men in wit as well as beauty. By the end of the ...century, Mary Astell was doing exactly that.

Often credited as the first English feminist, Astell's 1694 treatise "A Serious Proposal to the Ladies" argued that women were denied education from infancy — and that their supposed weaknesses were entirely the product of that denial, not of any natural deficiency. Her solution was radical: a kind of secular monastery where women could study, think, and teach each other.

This video examines Astell's argument in detail, drawing directly on her own words, and places it in the broader context of women's education in the 17th century — including the paradox that the Reformation, by closing the monasteries, had actually set women's education back from where it had been in the late Middle Ages.

0:00 Introduction
0:13 Abraham Cowley on women and wit
0:45 Women & education
1:30 Mary Astell
1:45 A Serious Proposal
2:15 Astell and education
3:00 Men's role in denying women education
3:37 A "monastery" for women
4:12 Medieval women's education
4:45 Women's right education
5:09 Fragile masculinity
5:23 Inherent ability
5:34 Education in depth
5:54 Benefits to men
6:29 Astell's school
6:50 Astell's publications

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@anosensei

May 11, 2025

0:00 Introduction
0:13 Abraham Cowley on women and wit
0:45 Women & education
1:30 Mary Astell
1:45 A Serious Proposal
2:15 Astell and education
3:00 Men’s role in denying women education
3:37 A “monastery” for women
4:12 Medieval women’s education
4:45 Women’s right education
5:09 Fragile masculinity
5:23 Inherent ability
5:34 Education in depth
5:54 Benefits to men
6:29 Astell’s school
6:50 Astell’s publications

Mary Astell: The First English Feminist? Women, Education and the 17th Century