A Serious Proposal to the Ladies

A work in two parts by the English writer Mary Astell, the first published anonymously in 1694 and signed only 'by a Lover of Her Sex'. Its starting point is that women's supposed weakness of mind is the product of their poor education, not of their nature: women have rational souls like men and the same duty to use them. Part I proposes a practical remedy, a residential community where unmarried women could withdraw for a time to study, pray and live by reason, a kind of religious retreat without permanent vows. Women would there learn to think for themselves rather than live by custom and the opinions of others, and to value the improvement of their minds over appearance and fashion. Part II, published in 1697 after the scheme found no backer, offers a method of thinking for women to use on their own, with rules for clear reasoning that draw on Descartes, and a discussion of how to govern the passions.

It is among the first sustained arguments in English that women's minds are equal to men's and deserve real education, and it shows feminist thought arising from within rationalist philosophy.