The Subjection of Women

"An excellent and affordable edition, with a pithy introduction by Okin that that contextualizes and summarizes the argument well. Mill's work affords insight not only into the issue of women's emancipation, but also into the world of 19th century liberalism: its views of history, of class, and of slavery..." -- Peter C Caldwell, Rice University.
"...A clear and helpful introduction by Susan Okin, one of the leading feminist scholars of our generation, as well as a useful bibliography and chronology of Mill's life... Invaluable for teaching and scholarship alike..." -- Ian Shapiro, Yale University.

In this essay Mill assails a system of inequality that supports and encourages the subjection of one individual by another and raises questions about the nature and relation of power and liberty.

John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 - 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century" by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.Mill was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham. He contributed to the investigation of scientific methodology, though his knowledge of the topic was based on the writings of others, notably William Whewell, John Herschel, and Auguste Comte, and research carried out for Mill by Alexander Bain. He engaged in written debate with Whewell.A member of the Liberal Party and author of the early feminist work The Subjection of Women, Mill was also the second Member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832.