Quote by Mary Astell: “If all men are born free, why are all women born slaves?”

This provocative question challenges the Enlightenment's ideals of universal liberty by highlighting the glaring contradiction in women's subjugation. Astell critiques societal hypocrisy, asserting that if freedom is a natural right for all, then women's oppressed status is a profound injustice that demands attention.

During the Enlightenment, philosophers debated natural rights and liberty, yet Astell highlighted the glaring hypocrisy in applying these principles exclusively to men.

English philosopher and proto-feminist writer who argued for women's education and rational equality nearly a century before Wollstonecraft. Her 1694 work A Serious Proposal to the Ladies advocated for women's colleges and challenged the assumption that women were intellectually inferior.