The Subjection of Women

In Mill's view how are women’s minds enslaved?

In mills view how are women’s minds enslaved?

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So they have done everything they could to enslave women’s minds. The masters of all other slaves get obedience through fear, either of themselves or of some religious punishment. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to get what they wanted. All women are brought up from their earliest years to believe that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men: not self-will and government by self-control, but submission and accepting control by someone else. All the moralities tell them that it is their duty, and all the current ideas about feelings tell them that it is their nature, to live for others—to set aside their own wishes and interests and have no life but in their affections. And by ‘their affections’ are meant the only ones they are allowed to have—those to the men with whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute an additional and unbreakable tie between them and a man. When we put together these three things—

(1) the natural attraction between opposite sexes;

(2) the wife’s entire dependence on the husband, with every privilege or pleasure that she has being either his gift or depending entirely on his will;

(3) the fact that it is only through the man that the woman can seek or obtain the principal object of human pursuit, namely consideration, or any objects of social ambition;

—it would be a miracle if the objective of being attractive to men had not become the polar star of feminine education and formation of character.

Source(s)

The Subjection of Women