2. o 1500-1750. o Early modern England was a hierarchical society with gradation of social degree or rank. o Women were categorised based on: class distinction, gender difference, culture and status. o Both academic theories and popular beliefs defined woman as secondary or "other" to man

3. elite” Middling” ordinary”plebeian” labouring” class” o The term “elite” is used as a shorthand for the wealthiest and most educated members of society, from the nobility to the minor gentry. “Middling” characterises the group of men and women whose relative prosperity distinguish them from one-third of the population who lived in poverty. The terms “ordinary” or “plebeian” refer to the mass of the female population. All terms used to refer to the non-elite sector of the society have their difficulties because, although we refer to the majority as “labouring” women, the word transmits the false impression that women of the middling and upper class did not work. The classification for social and economic distinctions is likewise contentious: ”class” has been used as a synonym for soci-economic levels but we also refer to ' social levels' or to 'rank'. (S. Mendelson and P. Crawford,1999; 5-6)

4. feminism o The term feminism has both an early and a late twentieth-century meaning. Feminism can be understood as a critique of women's position in society and as a desire to improve it. In early modern England, women expressed feminist views in a number of ways. Some voiced their criticism of injustices suffered by the female sex; others adopted forms of resistance which we can read as subversive.(S. Mendelson and P. Crawford,1999; 5-6)

5. o Women writings: diaries, autobiographies, letters, manuscript treatises or printed works. o Notions about women were discussed in medical, scientific, religious, legal and political texts. o The basic documents in which these biological and medical theories were published in Latin about the body, health and sickness. Then from the sixteen century onward with the advent of printing, text were translated for a wider audience.

6. o Sex and gender: woman’s otherness, weakness, inferiority and passivity o Women: either good or wicked: scolds, whores or witches. o Bodies were fundamental to early modern conceptions of sexual difference. People believed that everyone is either male or female.

7. o Medical axioms were influenced by religious ideology :thus, because woman was created second, because she tempted Adam to the Fall, she was condemned by God to bring forth children in sorrow. o Man was the measure of all things and the female was a deviation from the norm, the ‘other’. o Physicians debates: woman seem an aberration from human perfection. o Man vs female: Thus man was active, woman passive ;man was energetic, brave and strong, while woman was gentle, tender, kind and timorous. o Anatomically, women were less healthful because their passivity caused their diseases.(S. Mendelson and P. Crawford,1999; 5-6)

8. o During the sixteen and seventeenth century the religious establishment was the most powerful medium through which theories about human nature and society were disseminated to the general population. souls have no gender’ o Protestants assured women of their equal spirit status, through the doctrine that ‘ souls have no gender’ There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus o Galatian 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

9. o The Society of Friends or the Quaker movement began at the tail end of Europe’s Protestant Reformation in the 17th century with George Fox (1624- 1691), a nonconformist religious reformer. Quakers built their outlook upon the scriptures, believing God’s presence was in everybody and by faith in The Inner Light; they could gain direct access to God. Logical consequences of this belief were: that every man and woman has direct access to God; no priestly class or "steeple houses" (churches) are needed; that every person - male or female, slave or free is of equal worth; that there is no need in one's religious life for elaborate ceremonies, rituals, gowns, creeds, dogma, or other "empty forms.“ o Important female writers Quakers: Margaret Fell - Margaret Fell -she who wrote the first Quaker Peace Testimony in England. Elizabeth Hooton Elizabeth Hooton -Elizabeth Hooton was the first person to be ‘convinced of the truth’ and was also the greatest Quaker woman missionaries. Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers - sailed to Alexandria, where they hoped to distribute Christian literature and win souls. (History.com- about Quakers)