If all men are born free, Mary Astell asked, why are all women born slaves?

In 1700, Mary Astell turned the social-contract language philosophers used to argue for men's liberty back on marriage itself, pointing out that a wife entered a contract that then stripped her of the freedom contract theory was supposed to guarantee everyone. Years earlier she'd proposed an all-female academy, arguing women only seemed less rational than men because they were denied the same education. Historians now call her one of the first English feminist philosophers.

— Mary Astell, Some Reflections upon Marriage — 1700
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