The so-called first Feminists : orthodoxy and innovation in England's Seventeenth-Century discussion of women's education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.142Keywords:
women’s education, Bathsua Makin, Mary Astell, querelle des femmes genre, feminism, seventeenth-centuryAbstract
This essay examines the writings of women’s education advocate Bathsua Makin (1608-1675) in an effort to determine to what extent they were the product of traditional print debates about women and to what extent they were the innovative foundation for the ideas of Mary Astell (1668-1731), whose efforts on behalf of women have been deemed feminist by twentieth-century scholars. Through a close reading of Makin’s treatise, An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen (1673), a contextualisation of her ideas with the querelle des femmes genre and an examination of both overlapping and distinguishing elements of her work and that of Astell, this essay argues for a reassessment of the importance of Makin’s contribution to the seventeenth-century debate of women’s education.Downloads
References
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