Women Worthies and Feminist Argument in Eighteenth-Century Britain

The practice of celebrating exemplary women has had a hallowed if contested place in the history of feminism, but this essay argues that recent scholarship has not recognized just how profound a role the discourse of women worthies has played in the feminist thought of eighteenth-century Britain. By examining several major texts, including Mary Astell's writings and the 'Sophia' tracts, this analysis demonstrates the continuity and resilience of this discourse across the length of the eighteenth century. The female worthies managed to survive the challenge of newer feminist idioms such as Cartesianism, Scottish four-stage theory, and natural rights philosophy, and in fact appeared alongside them in the very same texts. Even when Mary Wollstonecraft dismissed the worthies, her colleagues restored them to debates over 'the rights of woman'.