ABSTRACT
During the early modern period there were no demands by women for equal political rights with men, and feminism as a self-conscious voice was not given a name until the end of the nineteenth century. Mary Astell’s A serious proposal to the ladies (1696) and the anonymous writer of An essay in defence of the female sex (1696) are often seen as the first books in which women argue for political and social change on behalf of women as a distinct social group.1 However, as this collection demonstrates, both women and men of the period did articulate conceptions, ideas and proposals which presage the development of a fully fledged feminist politics. I have called this fledgling articulation proto-feminism.
