LipstickUunder my Burkha: A Transformative Narrative about the Emancipation of Women

Abstract

    “If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?”asks Mary Astell in Some Reflections Upon Marriage , “as they must be if the being subjected to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary Will of Men, be the perfect Condition of Slavery?” Though the world has entered into a new millennium, these words have reverberated with modern liberal feminists who seek to extend the political ideals of complete liberty and equality to women. For them, Astell’s question is the rhetorical flourish in a simple but powerful argument: If all human beings are naturally free, then it is an injustice for any human being to be born into subjection and it is therefore an injustice for any woman to be born in subjection to men.