Rachel Speght (1597–unknown date) was a prominent English poet, polemicist, and feminist who lived during the Renaissance. She was born into a middle class family in London, where she became the first Englishwoman to openly criticize contemporary views on gender, thus revealing her name to the public. Her father, James Speght, was a Calvinist minister in the city, and the content of her writing indicates that she received a thorough education in theology as well as rhetoric and Latin (which was rare among women of her social status at the time). There is little known information about Speght’s mother, whose name does not appear in records, other than the fact that she passed some time between her two publications, A Mouzell for Melastomus (1617) and Mortalities Memorandum with a Dreame Prefixed (1621). At the age of twenty-four, Speght married the Calvinist minister William Procter in London, with whom she proceeded to have two children: Rachel (1627) and William (1630).

Rachel Speght published her first work, A Mouzell for Melastomus, at the young age of nineteen. In this piece, she directly responds to Joseph Swetnam’s scathing attack on women, Araignment of Lewde, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women (1615), by criticizing his derrogatory views of the female sex. Furthermore, through the use of prose enhanced by rhetoric and scriptural exegesis, she presents a convincing defense that refutes Swetnam’s fervent yet illogical claims about women. She first addresses him by introducing her response, which reads, “Not unto the veriest idiot that ever set pen to paper, but to the cynical baiter of women, or metamorphosed Misoguines, Joseph Swetnam.” Following this introduction is a passionate critique of his blatantly misogynistic piece as well as an organized explanation of why women are undeserving of the blame for the Fall and are inherently equal to men. (300 words)

The photograph above is of Saint Giles, Cripplegate, where Speght's two children were baptized. This image was created by Edwardx.

Sources:

“Rachel Speght.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Speght. Accessed 11 Feb. 2022.

“Speght, Rachel.” Oxford Reference, https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195169218.001.000.... Accessed 11 Feb. 2022.

Edwardx. “File:St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London 11.JPG.” Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Foundation, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Giles-without-Cripplegate,_Lo.... Accessed 11 Feb. 2022.

Speght, Rachel. “A Mouzell for Melastomus (1617).” Renascence Editions, http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/rachel.html. Accessed 11 Feb. 2022.