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Group Goals

The main goal of the Bluestocking groups was to enact transformations in society to support their own material interests. In this way, it was hard to identify their motives as altruistic; many of these women were middle and upper class, and did not support radical changes in social structure, in fear of the eradication of their own social status. They did, however, advocate a moderate transformation of the existing order. Bluestockings were also very supportive of methods that would be used to lessen the burden of the less fortunate, by advocating social philanthropy and practicing within the motivations of the established religious order.

Bluestocking women supported the development and maintenance of individually moral and industrious lives to prove their worth as women in society. Their philosophy involved a commitment to intellectual companionship of men and women against dominant relations of upper-class codes, conventions and practices. One main way that Bluestockings advocated these changes was by promoting female education, in order to seek a position in life that would equalize gender inequalities. While their work may seem somewhat moderate, the Bluestockings are directly predecessors of more radical women who fought for the equalization of female education.