Rational Freedom in John Stuart Mill's Feminism

Abstract

All the selfish propensities, the self-worship, the unjust self-preference, which exist among mankind, have their source and root in, and derive their principal nourishment from, the present constitution of the relation between men and women. John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women John Stuart Mill has rightfully earned a place of distinction in the history of the theory and practice of politics for championing the cause of women's emancipation. During his life, he became the object of ridicule and derision both for his theoretical work and for his political activities to promote women's freedom, although his famous work The Subjection of Women (1868) was well-received among several of his progressive colleagues and circulated widely among women's advocacy groups. As the “woman question” made progress in the twentieth century, Mill's reputation as one of its earliest supporters improved. Yet as a rule, throughout a significant portion of the twentieth century, Mill scholars persisted in the belief that one can understand Mill's moral and political thought without having to read, let alone reflect on, his views on the relations between women and men in political, social, and domestic life. This general attitude has lingered despite Mill's unequivocal insistence that women's wide-ranging subjection to men is a deeply problematic “isolated fact” in modern institutional and social life that demands serious theoretical scrutiny ( The Subjection of Women, CW XXI: 275, 294).