Discussion
Question: Why did Mary Astell suggest
such extreme solutions as a learning environment for woman, and is it
necessary?
In Mary Astell's
From A Serious Proposal to the Ladies is a plea for intellectual equality among
the sexes. The author was tired of the
oppressive nature of man, which kept her and her sisters from developing their
minds. She felt that females back then
should have the same rights as women have achieved through the Civil Rights
Movement
today. Her answer to this was "A
Religious Retirement." It is Mary Astell's
ideal place to end her intellectual suffering and open new doors for the
female mind. I feel that Mary went a little to far with this idea. She wanted
to segregate males and females, live in a convent, and find alternates to
marriage for women, which, I guess, would be the same as living in a convent.
Mary was a feminist which I feel lead her to be so aggressive in this proposal,
but I can understand why she is mad. I would feel the same way if I was not
aloud to attend Florida State because of some ridiculous stereotype, for
example, due to the fact I am a male. I guess I would also want a separate
place to learn if society shunned me for who I am and what I wanted to do with
my mind, but I would not exclude people to the same degree that Mary wanted to.
So these places that Mary Astell wanted to create do have some merit to them.
For without them, women of that time, unless rich, would not have been able to
be educated. 
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