SOURCE: Perry, Ruth. “Mary Astell and the Feminist Critique of Possessive Individualism.” Eighteenth Century Studies 23, No. 4 (1990): 444-57.

In following essay, Perry examines Astell's political beliefs and writings on the Glorious Revolution as well as her ideas concerning the affect of the revolution on the status of women in her time.

It long has been assumed that democracy—that egalitarian political practice expressed in the simple formula that “all men are created equal”—is good for women and compatible with feminism. It is assumed that women, however devalued and disempowered, will benefit from the democratic extension of power—and be counted among those who are considered equal. Our culture's stories about women's participation in the revolutions of the eighteenth century—Betsy Ross and her friends stitching the new flag or the fierce Frenchwomen in the streets of Paris calling for the blood of aristocrats—reinforce this impression. Yet by...