The Subjection of Women
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~45,500 words · 216 passages
Cite this work
- APAJohn Stuart Mill. (n.d.). The Subjection of Women. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-stuart-mill/the-subjection-of-women
- MLAJohn Stuart Mill. "The Subjection of Women." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-stuart-mill/the-subjection-of-women.
- ChicagoJohn Stuart Mill. The Subjection of Women. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-stuart-mill/the-subjection-of-women.
What it is about
The Subjection of Women (1869): inequality between the sexes is a residue of the law of the strongest, not a natural fact.
Context and history
Written with Harriet Taylor, and the most important feminist text written by a man in the nineteenth century. The central argument is still hard to answer: nobody can know what is 'natural' in women because none has ever lived in freedom.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN BY JOHN STUART MILL LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, AND DYER LONDON: SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN. CHAPTER I. The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able, the grounds of an opinion which I have held from the very earliest period when I had formed any opinions at all on social or political matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been constantly growing stronger by the progress of reflection and the experience of life: That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes--the legal subordination of one sex to the other--is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other. The very words necessary to express the task I have undertaken, show how arduous it is. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the difficulty of the case must lie in the insufficiency or obscurity of the grounds of reason on which my conviction rests. The difficulty is that which exists in all cases in which there is a mass of feeling to be contended against. So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded its adherents are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains, it is always throwi
What is The Subjection of Women about?Summarize The Subjection of Women brieflyWhat are the key ideas in The Subjection of Women?
← Back to John Stuart Mill