Inés Joyes y Blake

Inés Joyes y Blake (27 December 1731 – 1808) was a Spanish translator and writer of the Age of Enlightenment. She became known in the field of letters with her translation of the novel The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson. Her edition of this work includes a text of her own, entitled "Apología de las mujeres", which constitutes one of the first feminist essays in Spain.

Biography Inés Joyes y Blake was born in Madrid into a Catholic family, with a French mother and an Irish father. 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. It must have been a family with a certain cultural level, and their comfortable social position allowed Ines access to a deeper intellectual education than most of her contemporaries. She spoke several languages, including English, French, and Spanish, and participated in gatherings and cultural meetings organized by Enlightenment figures.

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. The couple had nine children – five boys and four girls – over twenty years. They maintained extensive family relationships and with influential people in local society. However, Joyes is not known for public activities beyond her family responsibilities or indirect involvement in business. First they settled in Málaga, and from 1767 to 1771 in Vélez-Málaga, where her husband had business, which she would later take over after his death in 1782. Inés would live in Málaga until her death in 1808.

Inés Joyes did not lose her connection with the Irish culture and its language. Thanks to this, in 1798, she translated the English philosophical novel The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson, this being its first translation into Spanish. In it, Inés also included a text in the form of a letter, "Apología de las mujeres" (Apology of Women), constituting her only surviving work.

Work and thought

"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. It deals with the situation of women in their time, denouncing the poor education they received, the inequality and double standards that they observed in society. She firmly denounces social inequalities and interests that limited the ability of women, to confine them to family life, showing special concern for the education of women and the role that they played in society.

Apologia is part of a long tradition of debate about women. 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. The 1790s saw a radicalization of critical discourse and the demands of women throughout Europe. However, as in other writings published in those years such as Josefa Amar's El discurso sobre la educación física y moral de las mujeres, the contribution of Joyes is mainly about the inequalities of women in the private sphere and in social spaces: family, education, romantic and social relationships, judgment, and writing. 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".