What John Stuart Mill thinks about gender equality
Philosopher (1806 to 1873), a utilitarian and liberal; worked for the East India Company for almost thirty-five years; elected Member of Parliament for Westminster in 1865.
John Stuart Mill did not write this page.
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15 dated positions, c. 1861–1869, in their own words. Our reading of what John Stuart Mill has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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Their wordsThat 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 Subjection of Women (1869)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Our readingWomen's dependence keeps the taint of its brutal origin, so its existence is no argument for it
Their wordsIt has not lost the taint of its brutal origin. No presumption in its favour, therefore, can be drawn from the fact of its existence.
↗The Subjection of Women (1869)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Our readingBecause women's subjection is a universal custom, any departure from it appears unnatural
Their wordsThe subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural.
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Their wordsThe social subordination of women thus stands out an isolated fact in modern social institutions; a solitary breach of what has become their fundamental law; a single relic of an old world of thought and practice exploded in everything else, but retained in the one thing of most universal interest; as if a gigantic dolmen, or a vast temple of Jupiter Olympius, occupied the site of St. Paul's and received daily worship, while the surrounding Christian churches were only resorted to on fasts and festivals.
↗The Subjection of Women (1869)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Our readingNobody can know the nature of the two sexes while they have only been seen in their present relation
Their wordsStanding on the ground of common sense and the constitution of the human mind, I deny that any one knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another.
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Their wordsWhat women by nature cannot do, it is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing.
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Their wordsIn this respect the wife's position under the common law of England is worse than that of slaves in the laws of many countries: by the Roman law, for example, a slave might have his peculium, which to a certain extent the law guaranteed to him for his exclusive use.
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Our readingThe power of earning is essential to a woman's dignity if she has no independent property
Their wordsThe power of earning is essential to the dignity of a woman, if she has not independent property.
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Their wordsI believe that their disabilities elsewhere are only clung to in order to maintain their subordination in domestic life; because the generality of the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal.
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Their wordsUnder whatever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted to the suffrage, there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting women under the same.
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Their wordsI do not say, as they will continue to be; for, as I have already said more than once, I consider it presumption in any one to pretend to decide what women are or are not, can or cannot be, by natural constitution.
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Our readingA first advantage of sexual equality is having the most universal human relation governed by justice
Their wordsTo which let me first answer, the advantage of having the most universal and pervading of all human relations regulated by justice instead of injustice.
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Their wordsThe second benefit to be expected from giving to women the free use of their faculties, by leaving them the free choice of their employments, and opening to them the same field of occupation and the same prizes and encouragements as to other human beings, would be that of doubling the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of humanity.
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Their wordsBut I maintain, with the profoundest conviction, that this, and this only, is the ideal of marriage; and that all opinions, customs, and institutions which favour any other notion of it, or turn the conceptions and aspirations connected with it into any other direction, by whatever pretences they may be coloured, are relics of primitive barbarism.
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Their wordsThe moral regeneration of mankind will only really commence, when the most fundamental of the social relations is placed under the rule of equal justice, and when human beings learn to cultivate their strongest sympathy with an equal in rights and in cultivation.
↗The Subjection of Women (1869)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book