Philosophy and advocacy
Often touted as the "Lockean feminist" by scholars (such as Jaqueline Broad and Lois Frankel), Damaris Cudworth Masham's public works consisted of a mix between her own proto-feminist ideals, advocacy her father's Platonism, and Lockean theories and arguments. She criticized the double standard of men and women's moralities and women's lack of access to higher education.
In her Occasional Thoughts in reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life (1705), Damaris Cudworth Masham makes two important points regarding the inferior education given to women. Firstly, she argues that giving an inferior education to women leaves them unfit to be able to give their children a proper education (since most children, during this period, were given early education by their mothers and education was still mostly reserved for members of the elite). She writes,
“The improvements of Reason, however requisite to Ladies for their Accomplishment, as rational Creatures; and however needful to them for the well Educating of their Children, and to their being useful in their Families, yet are rarely any recommendation of them to Men; who foolishly thinking, that Money will answer to all things, do, for the most part, regard nothing else in the Woman they would Marry … Girls, betwixt silly Fathers and ignorant Mothers, are generally so brought up, that traditionary Opinions are to them, all their lives long, instead of Reason."
Here, Damaris Cudworth Masham argued that it would be a benefit to all mankind should women be allowed access to higher education since it would allow them to educate better their children and advance reason in society.
Secondly, Cudworth argued that women should have access to education for not only their children's spiritual welfare but for their own. She argued that “Women have Souls to be sav’d as well as Men,” and that, by being blessed with rational thinking, it was imperative for women to understand the principles and values behind their own religious beliefs. “They [women] are, perhaps sometimes told in regard of what Religion exacts, They must Believe and Do such and such things, because the Word of God requires it; but they are not put upon searching the Scriptures themselves, to see whether, or no, these things are so." She further argued that a woman's duty and knowledge should not be grounded on the "uncertain and variable Opinions of Men" but that they should, instead, be able to nurture their minds as well as their bodies and form their own opinions about spirituality.
