Education
Astell did not attend school; instead, she was taught at home, at first by her uncle, Ralph Astell.
She was baptized in St. John's Church in Newcastle.
Astell did not attend school; instead, she was taught at home, at first by her uncle, Ralph Astell.
She was baptized in St. John's Church in Newcastle.
Astell set forth her thoughts upon the inequities of the "woman's sphere" in such works as 1697's "A Serious Proposal to the Ladies" and "Some Reflections upon Marriage".
Her proposal was never adopted because critics said it seemed "too Catholic" for the English. Later her ideas about women were satirized in the Tatler by the writer Jonathan Swift. A few years later, Astell published the second part of A Serious Proposal, detailing her own vision of women's education for courtly ladies.
She was a feminist.
She advocated dualism as a way in which women could define their selfhood in terms of their minds, rather than their bodies
Quotations: "If all Men are born Free, why are all Women born Slaves?"