The Subjection of Women

The book-length essay The Subjection of Women was written in 1869 by John Stuart Mill, an English philosopher known for his progressive, utilitarian ideas. The essay includes four chapters and was published in London by Lonmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer publishers. The Subjection of Women is a persuasive argument, laying out the problem of women’s legal, marital, and societal oppression to show that gender equality is necessary to ensure social justice, improve societal progress, and increase human happiness. This guide uses the Project Gutenberg e-book edition released in 2008.

Mill begins with his thesis statement: The oppression of women prevents societal progress, and the solution is to create laws and policies that promote gender equality. Mill acknowledges that his greatest opposition is not logic or reason, but a “universal opinion” Western culture holds regarding the supposed innate inferiority of women. As Mill states, “In every respect the burthen [sic] is hard on those who attack an almost universal opinion. They must be very fortunate as well as unusually capable if they obtain a hearing at all” (3). Mill recognizes that the key to persuading his opposition rests on his ability to undermine this assumption that patriarchy represents a “natural” hierarchy between the sexes.

Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of women’s oppression. Chapter 1 centers on the “universal opinion” Mill has determined to unravel. According to Mill, while the 18th century prioritized reason during the Age of Enlightenment, the 19th century has decided that feeling and instinct are foundational to truth. If society still prioritized reason, then it would recognize that gender inequality rests on an outdated belief in what he calls the “law of force” (13). This “law” is in fact contrary to the rule of law in that there is no consent of the governed; rather, whoever wields power (an enslaver, an absolute monarch, etc.) does so exclusively through force or the threat of force. Mill contends that modern democracies have abandoned this mindset in all areas except the relationship between genders.

Throughout the essay, Mill compares women’s oppression to slavery. In Chapter 1, Mill uses this comparison to illustrate how, despite slavery’s promotion in the Bible and establishment as a long-standing human tradition, Western culture finally recognized the brutal, inhumane, and unjust nature of the practice and abolished it. Thus, tradition is not the same as social justice, but often a reflection of unthinking habits. Once we consider the morals of an institution, we can and should change systems that no longer reflect current societal values.

Chapter 1 also delineates the reasons why people mistake the gender hierarchy as natural rather than the product of intense socialization. Women are educated from early childhood to sublimate their needs for others, to recognize characteristics like submission and passivity as inherently female, and to embellish these characteristics to attract a man and secure their position in society. If these characteristics and desires were natural, imposing this type of education on women would be unnecessary. Mill argues that the current system is based on ignorance; society has not done enough to investigate women’s true capabilities or to explore democratic systems that consider women full citizens instead of property.

Chapter 2 centers on the legal subjection of women, primarily via marriage. Again, Mill argues that if the subjection of women were “natural,” laws limiting women would be superfluous because they would organically fill the role society has ascribed to them. Additionally, if marriage were the true aim of womanhood and provided women the fulfillment promised them, the many restrictions imposed upon women to force them into marriage would be redundant: “Society, however, both in [marriage], and, at first, in all other cases, has preferred to attain its object by foul rather than fair means: but this is the only case in which it has substantially persisted in them even to the present day” (53). Because women cannot own property, inherit wealth, or work outside of the home, marriage is their only route to financial stability. The institution is made worse by the fact that men are not required to prove their suitability for marriage as they must prove themselves worthy for their occupations. Instead, any man may take a wife and treat her as he sees fit—at best as a valuable possession and at worst as something to exploit and abuse.

Chapter 3 continues to focus on the legal oppression of women, considering restrictions on voting and occupational choice, as well as exclusion from public life overall. According to Mill, the belief that all women are inherently inferior to men deprives society of the positive contributions women could make and limits the competitiveness of career fields. Women should also have the right to vote given how greatly the law impacts them. Mill likewise argues that women should be able to run for office; if they are unfit to serve, that will bear itself out during their campaign. Mill refers to female monarchs to show that women have ruled as well as or better than their male counterparts. The fact that more women have not achieved greatness in politics, art, literature, or philosophy is because they have been prevented from doing so, not because they cannot succeed in these arenas. Given the dangers that protesting oppression carries for the oppressed, Mill suggests that it is as much men’s responsibility as women’s to denounce this state of affairs.

Mill particularly challenges the stereotype characterizing women as excessively emotional or “nervous” compared to men. Again, Mill claims that this stereotype is more attributable to “universal opinion” than fact, and “women brought up to work for their livelihood show none of these morbid characteristics, unless indeed they are chained to an excess of sedentary work in confined and unhealthy rooms” (112). In other words, women are not naturally moody or anxious but become so due to societal oppression.

In Chapter 4, Mill highlights the benefits of gender equality for both individual women and society overall. First, gender equality would bring society closer to achieving a true meritocracy and increase social justice. Secondly, allowing women to explore and develop their brains would increase the number of intelligent people contributing to society. In addition, women’s superior (according to Mill) moral qualities would decrease societal violence. Finally, gender equality would ensure marriages were based on genuine friendship and shared beliefs. Therefore, equality would bring happiness to women via both freedom and self-dignity, which is the right of all people.