John Stuart Mill's Essay 'The Subjection Of Women'

During the mid-19th century the United States was still facing the sudden expansion of its territory as there were many different ideals being fought for causing America’s democracy to expand and restrict in different ways. Many northern people were against slavery causing the southern slave owners to say that it was a restriction of their rights to own property. Women were fighting for fairness in workplaces. Women did not want to be considered just an add on to men anymore. The United States government tried to juggle the needs and wants of every party, but to satisfy one would mean the restriction of another’s freedom.

In the early nineteenth century, women were expected to be, “‘angels in the house,’ loving, self-sacrificing, and chaste wives, mothers and daughters or they are… ultimately doomed” (King et al. 23). Women of this time were supposed to be domestic creatures and not tap so far into their intellectual abilities (King et al.). The role of women in the nineteenth century is described:

Women’s issues during slavery and even into the Reconstruction Era were not held as top priorities within the social structure of life during those times. The main political and social issues were within the male spectrum, and therefore left women’s rights and values in second place, behind men. Within the nineteenth century, there were four specific characteristics that society deemed should be associated with a woman; piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness. However, this was not the case when it came to black women. They were not able to exemplify the expected worldview of womanhood due to their circumstances.

Mill makes a very strong argument that the position women have in society is not the only possible way to structure societal hierarchy. The reason it seems unnatural to change its structure, he claims, is because it is uncustomary.

Women’s rights have improved drastically since that time but there still is a stigma that men are better than women. This type of view is wrong and shouldn’t even be thought about in the world we live into today. Woman server a great purpose in the world we live in and should be considered equal in all aspects of life. If one were to ponder this idea seriously we can see without out women no children are born. The sad truth is that women still have to fight for their rights in every aspect of their daily lives. The typical women in society makes only .70 cents for every dollar that a man would make doing the same job. One would think that one hundred and fifty years later women would be considered equal counterparts to men. “There has been progress toward greater workplace equality, but we still have a long ways to

The history in the 1800s was really rough then now days because they had the Nez Perce war going on and at the same time, we had problems with woman not being able to vote, and the Immigrants were all looking for jobs. As I said earlier about women not being able to vote was a big step back for woman, not so much for men as they didn’t want women to vote. As the author said in the 1840s, emerging from the broader movement for women's rights”(w.i.t.p.n.). Woman were treated imperfect towards men all because they were a different gender, which is unacceptable back in the 1840s and would be now if it happened because we should all be treated the the same and have the same rights. As it says in the text “In order to earn revenue from their land

The past history of subjection towards women by accounts of nature is one of the reasons that women are still oppressed today. John Stuart Mill in his writing

As Berne inclined in his quote, the minute (for context I mean small) differences in people are pointless, and in the end, result in nothing gained if you judge one for it. The African American population was enslaved for hundreds of years in America, only because of the difference in skin tone and where their ancestors came from. Mark Twain satirizes that same time period, and with positive developments as a result of wrong traditions of slaveholding, society still finds itself with similar prejudices, as Wolf presented in his article. However, the lack of equality doesn’t stop there, with admittedly clear efforts to put an end to it. sexism is still an ever growing problem. Women were once housewives, and with Women’s Suffrage, they received their God-given rights, yet they still are denied the same opportunities their male counterparts are afforded. Afterall, through these sources, it is evident that society today still holds values that have not only been deemed incorrect but also are outdated and are without any clear justification for them. The horrible realization to make is that racism and sexism still exist in society, the same society, however, wishes to cast aside such prejudice but also is also the one that secretly still holds onto them.With this in mind, as well as the knowledge that progress for equality comes with every minute, hopefully,

Women all over the world have been mistreated for more than a century. It has been exploited throughout the world as how “women aren’t currently treated the same as men in certain situations” but it is far more beyond that. Only half of the world seems to at least know what is really happening behind the curtain. Ambiguous people have manipulated the very much realness with what is exactly taking place in our society. In this essay, I will be talking about the following things; Inequity in the workplace, “Asking for it”, Violence against women globally, Education, and The psychology of it all. These five topics need to be demanded attention. Our younger generation needs to be cognizant of what has been going on for many millenniums. Girls and women should be able to walk around at night and not be afraid, nor should they be afraid to oppose another man. There is no real justification on why women should be treated like this but there is plenty of justification on why they shouldn 't, so genuinely why is this problem happening? Some of the books that I read to have mostly validation on this paper from other human beings but also to enlighten myself even more that I already am. “Subjection of Women” by John Stuart Mill, “Created Equal: Voices on Women 's Rights” by Anna Horsbrugh-Porter, and “Equal Pay for Equal Work” by Grace C. Strachan. I chose these three texts because each one yet talks about the same thing but has a little bit of a different perspective on each. I

American’s who live in the 21st century know that slavery is terrible and also a touchy subject. But Americans used to rely heavily on slavery, how we perceive slavery in today’s society can either be the same or different from how others thought of slavery living within mid 1800s. People who resided in the northern region of American found slavery wrong as we do today. Americans who lived farther south however liked, and relied on slavery. In today’s world, we Americans almost all agree that slavery had been a negative factor of our country. But within the 1840s and 1870s, Americans had been divided by slavery. People that were against slavery created the union as the pro slavery citizens created the confederates. Today, we can see why people of the mid 19th century either supported slavery or rebelled against it by reviewing sources.

In “The Subjection of Women” by John Stuart Mill, he argues that there should be perfect equality between males and females rather than one sex dominating the other. During the time in which he wrote this, women did not hold much power, so his stance appeared very radical. He began the essay by stating that, “the legal subordination of one sex to the other is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement” (p. 1105). Because he began his essay by stating the flaw he saw in society that he wished to change, the rest of the essay flowed smoothly and led the reader to comprehend the validity of his argument. Mill made several well-thought out emotional and logical appeals in order to prove that women were being

In this first unit, one of the readings that really caught my attention was John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women. In his essay, Mill’s presents a very compelling argument that the subordination of one sex to another is wrong and that there should be instead, perfect equality amongst the sexes. Having previously studied about gender inequality issues from another class, I have a broad understanding of how and why gender inequality has been perpetuated through various historical, political, and social contexts. Incorporating this knowledge as well as information learned through the readings and lectures, I hope to share my thoughts on the subjection of women and its relationship to slavery in this personal response paper.

“Absolute liberty is the absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself” - Henry Brooks Adams. There has been great debate, past and present with regards to what constitutes as an individuals liberty. It has been subject to constant ridicule and examination due to violations of civil rights. Freedom, liberty, and independence are all important human rights represented within John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty.

Composed by four distinct chapters, “The Subjection of Women”, offers its readers with precise arguments demonstrating Mill’s liberal feminism and his commitment to gender equality. In the first chapter of his essay, John Stuart Mills challenges the common notion that women are by nature unequal to men. He argues that “… From the dawn of human society, every woman was in a state of bondage to some man, because she was of value to him and she had less muscular strength than he did…” alluding to the idea that women have always been conceived to be physically and mentally less capable than men, and therefore needed to be taken care of by the stronger gender. As a result of these primitive

Along with other noted philosophers, John Stuart Mill developed the nineteenth century philosophy known as Utilitarianism - the contention that man should judge everything in life based upon its ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. While Bentham, in particular, is acknowledged as the philosophy’s founder, it was Mill who justified the axiom through reason. He maintained that because human beings are endowed with the ability for conscious thought, they are not merely satisfied with physical pleasures; humans strive to achieve pleasures of the mind as well. Once man has ascended to this high intellectual level, he desires to stay there, never descending to the lower level of