Mary Astell

English philosopher — author of A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694) — who argued for women's education and called marriage a form of tyranny — one of the earliest systematic feminist arguments in English philosophy.

Creates the first sustained feminist critique in English philosophy — Astell's A Serious Proposal argued that women's apparent intellectual inferiority was caused by lack of education rather than natural deficiency, and that women should establish their own scholarly communities; her critique of marriage as slavery anticipated feminist arguments by 200 years.