The Subjection of Women is an essay by John Stuart Mill in which he argues for social and legal equality between men and women. Published in 1869, Mill attributes much of the ideas in the essay to his wife, Hariet Taylor Mill. In this essay, Mill develops a theoretical argument for women’s suffrage, challenging common justifications for why women had inferior legal status and asserting that if women are more emotional than rational and do not exhibit the same intellectual capabilities as men, it is because society has brought them up to be that way. He questions why women are confined to home life and subjected to the rule of men, especially if they are considered morally superior to men. Throughout this essay, Mill attacks the attitudes and customs that have shaped this system of inequality and insists that the only way to know the natural abilities of women or determine whether there are any differences between women and men is for society to treat them equally.
The presence of this essay in Mill’s autobiography illustrates how his opinions evolved over time according to his life experiences and relationships with others. Though Mill claims that he supported equality before he met his wife, he also attributes the development of this work and his understanding of the more practical consequences of gender inequality to the conversations he had with Harriet Taylor Mill. While much of his writings seem to be inspired by independent thought, this is a notable exception in which he asserts that many of the ideas he writes about were developed, at least in part, by someone else.
Sources:
Mill, John Stuart. “The Subjection Of Women.” The MIT Press, The MIT Press, mitpress.mit.edu/books/subjection-women.
Mill, John Stuart. “The Subjection of Women.” The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill, Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/files/27083/27083-h/27083-h.htm.
“The Subjection of Women by J.S. Mill.” The British Library, The British Library, 10 Apr. 2014, www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-subjection-of-women-by-j-s-mill.
“The Subjection of Women.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/The-Subjection-of-Women.