Mary Astell

The philosopher Mary Astell (1666 - 1731) has been described as “the first English feminist”. Born in Newcastle in relatively poor circumstances in the aftermath of the upheaval of the English Civil War and the restoration of the monarchy, she moved to London as a young woman and became part of an extraordinary circle of intellectual and aristocratic women. In her pioneering publications, she argued that women’s education should be expanded, that men and women’s minds were the same and that no woman should be forced to marry against her will. Perhaps her most famous quotation is: “If all Men are born Free, why are all Women born Slaves?” Today, she is one of just a handful of female philosophers to be featured in the multi-volume Cambridge History of Political Thought.

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Guests

• Hannah Dawson No other episodes
  Senior Lecturer in the History of Ideas at King's College London
• Mark Goldie 2 episodes
  Professor Emeritus of Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge
• Teresa Bejan 2 episodes
  Associate Professor of Political Theory at Oriel College, University of Oxford

Reading list

• Women, Feminism and Religion in Early Enlightenment England
  Sarah Apetrei (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
• Political Writings
  Mary Astell (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
• A Serious Proposal to the Ladies
  Mary Astell (Broadview Press, 1999)
• Reflections Upon Marriage: The third edition. To which is added a preface, in answer to some objections
  Mary Astell (Gale ECCO, 2010)
• Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century
  Jacqueline Broad (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
• A History of Women's Political Thought in Europe, 1400 to 1700
  Jacqueline Broad and Karen Green (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
• The Philosopher Queens: The Lives and Legacies of Philosophy's Unsung Women
  Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting (Unbound, 2020)
• Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith
  William Kolbrener and Michal Michelson (Routledge, 2007)
• The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist
  Ruth Perry (University of Chicago Press, 1986)
• Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination
  Patricia Springborg (Cambridge University Press, 2005)

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Programme ID: m000nzpf

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nzpf

Auto-category: 305.42 (Women’s rights)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, Mary Astell, 1666 to 1731, has been described as the first English feminist.