Inés Joyes y Blake

Like many Irish families settled in Spain at the time, hers belonged to the world of the business bourgeoisie, making their fortune around large cities and especially in the capital.

[2] In 1752, she married the merchant Agustín Blake, a relative on her mother's side, in what was an arranged marriage, serving social equilibrium and economic convenience.

In it, Inés also included a text in the form of a letter, "Apología de las mujeres" (Apology of Women),[5] constituting her only surviving work.

[6] "Apología de las mujeres" is an essay that Joyes dedicated to her daughters, and that she wrote in epistolary mode as an appendix to her translation of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia.

In turn, she defends the exercise of reason by women, in an attempt to make them aware of their own intellectual capacity and their worth, trying to maintain their confidence in the face of male opinion.

[6] One criticism that stands out in Joyes' work is that related to the moral double standard that proposed very different demands for men and women in family matters, of life choices, etc.

In 1726 Father Feijóo published Defensa de las mujeres, which provoked a great controversy and led to an avalanche of texts on the nature, morals, and education of women.

[9] Being familiar with Enlightenment ideas, it is possible that Inés Joyes read her contemporary Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and that is why certain features of her work can be observed in "Apología de las mujeres".