WOMEN IN THE BACKROUND OF HISTORY

María Isidra de Guzmán y de la Cerda, Duchess of Nájera, was the first woman to obtain a doctorate in Spain.

In the 18th century, the debate on the status of women and women’s education had been present in the writings of the Enlightenment thinkers. Thus, the work of Father Feijoo. ‘In Defence of Women’ pointed out how a lack of education prevented women from fully developing their qualities.

Campomanes believed that female religious orders could play a prominent role in the education of women. Despite this defence by the Enlightenment thinkers, women’s education was aimed at fulfilling the tasks appropriate to their sex rather than developing their intellectual ambitions.

María Isidra de Guzmán was undoubtedly an exception among her gender, but she possessed a number of traits that facilitated her academic career. Her birth and lineage made her worthy of a careful education, which was provided by her tutor Antonio de Almarza and covered subjects such as philosophy and fine arts, as well as a deep knowledge of languages. Biographies about her, such as Margarita Nsiken’s Las escritoras españolas (Spanish Women Writers), often emphasise that it was the special wish of King Charles III, who held María Isidra’s parents in high regard, that allowed her to obtain her doctorate. The defence of her thesis, which focused on the third chapter of Aristotle’s book ‘De anima’, took place at the University of Alcalá on 4 June 1785. This earned her other honours, such as her admission as an honorary member of the Madrid Society of Friends of the Country… There was another institution that admitted Isidra on an honorary basis. We are referring to the Royal Spanish Academy, which admitted her into its ranks in the same year she defended her thesis. https://www.cultura.gob.es/cultura/areas/archivos/mc/centros/cida/4-difusion-cooperacion/4-1-guias-de-lectura/mujeres-pioneras/julio-maria-isidra-guzman.html