Question- Provide a summary on The Subjection of women chapter I'.

Answer -

In The Subjection of Women, John Stuart Mill will argue that the current state of gender inequality is inherently wrong and that it is holding back human civilization. Men and women should instead exist in a state of "perfect equality," with neither gender having any power or privilege over the other. This is a difficult argument to make, because people tend to have a very strong emotional response to the issue of gender, which prohibits critical, rational engagement. Furthermore, it is especially challenging to make an argument that contradicts an opinion held by most people in society. At the time Mill is writing, it is assumed that most people are in favor of liberty for all people, including equal treatment under the law. In reality, however, the Mill still faces an uphill battle arguing that men and women should be equal. Even if his argument were perfectly sound, it would not be enough to convince most people, because gender inequality is such a deeply entrenched aspect of society. Mill understands how challenging it is to question the ideas which with one has been raised.

Throughout history, women have been subordinate to men due to their comparative physical weakness. This imbalance has been reinforced by laws that give women few legal rights. Mill compares this phenomenon to slavery, which began with enslaved people being physically overpowered by masters. Then, it was turned into an elaborate legal framework that protected and enhanced the power of enslavers. For many centuries, both slavery and gender inequality were not questioned by any philosopher. Now, the enslavement of men has been largely abolished, but women's subordination-which Mill characterizes as female slavery-persists, albeit in a milder form. The fact that gender inequality has persisted for so long does not mean it is a good thing. It is important to remember that the reason gender inequality exists in the first place is due to the "law of the strongest," a principle that has been rejected in the modern world.

In ancient times, the Stoics (along with the Jews) were the first to introduce the idea that enslavers had an ethical duty toward the enslaved. Christianity upheld this view in theory, but for many centuries, it was not properly implemented in Christian societies. While people expressed their faith in intense ways-from going to war to fasting-Christian devotion did not decrease the existence of violence and tyranny. It is only recently, with the emergence of a large bourgeois class and a more powerful urban working class, that society has shifted away from tyranny and toward freedom.

Only 40 years prior to the time of Mill's writing, English people were still allowed to own enslaved people, kidnapping them from their homelands and "working them literally to death." Yet even while slavery was legal, many English people were critical of it, because it was such an extreme example of the law of force and because the only justifications for it were profit and greed. At the same time, other institutions-such as the monarchy-currently remain in place in England despite the fact that they have no real justification. Once a system like the monarchy is established, it is hard to dismantle it. Similarly, gender inequality has notable lasting power.

One reason for why gender inequality has survived so long is because it gives an opportunity for all men-regardless of their class-to have power over women. Moreover, men are particularly well set up to squash resistance from women, because of the intimacy between the sexes. Men constantly bribe or intimidate women to obey. For this reason, even as other system of unjust power and authority have been dismantled, gender inequality remains. Some people might object that whereas slavery and the monarchy are "arbitrary" social inventions, the unequal relation between the sexes is "natural." In reality, however, gender inequality only seems natural-just as slavery did before abolition.

One of the most significant contributions made by The Subjection of Women is its exposure of male views on gender inequality. Given that this is the first book about women's rights written by a man in the modern West, it contains insights into how and why men uphold sexism that previously might have gone unmentioned. As a man himself, Mill is well-positioned to be able to reveal the logic that encourages men to engage in women's oppression.

One of the most important arguments Mill makes in this essay is that people should be critical of the claims people make about pature. Often, when people say something is natural, they mean that it is a familiar, widespread, or ancient custom-not that it is actually based in biology.

Here, Mill questions the extent to which -gender inequality is a universal condition that has existed across time and place. Although he doesn't mention them here, there are actually many more examples of cultures across global history that did not have a patriarchal system in place at all.

Some people will object that there is another important difference between gender inequality and other forms of domination, because women freely consent to their status. Firstly, this is not actually true; ever since women have been allowed to publish writing, they have expressed dissatisfaction with their oppression. Recently, thousands of English women wrote a petition to Parliament in favor of female suffrage. In the U.S., France, Italy, Switzerland, and Russia, women are also fighting for their rights. Furthermore, it is important to remember that oppressed people always make gradual demands for their rights, rather than insisting on immediate full equality. They begin by criticizing excessive or unnecessary acts of oppression before they demand an end to the unequal relationship itself.

Mill is, thus, not a lone voice in his advocation of gender equality- rather, he's joining a chorus of people agitating for women's emancipation across the world.

Is There are many reasons why women are unlikely to resist male oppression. First of all, most men do not want to feel that they are oppressing women, but rather want women to willingly submit to them. For this reason, they indoctrinate women into accepting their own oppression. Women are raised to believe that, unlike men, they are naturally submissive. They come to think that it is their duty to live in service of other people. Overall, this has the effect of making women believe that the sole purpose of their lives is to be "attractive to men."

So Here, Mill insightfully describes the sinister psychological dynamics involved in gender-based oppression. It is not enough that men oppress women-they also compel women to act as if they enjoy and relish their oppression. Of course, this makes ending women's subjugation more difficult, because many women are indoctrinated into liking the current system.

If the same were true of another oppressed group-for example, if peasants were indoctrinated into obsessing over the approval of noblemen- then it is likely people would also think that the subjugation of this group was. "natural." It is therefore safe to say that just because gender inequality is the norm doesn't mean it's a good thing. In fact, Mill will now go on to prove that gender inequality is a harmful, out-of-date system that should be abandoned. Modern society is defined by the fact that the position a person was born into no longer determines what they can do in life. This was very different in the past, when a person's class and race defined how they lived and what they were able to achieve.

From a contemporary perspective, it might be strange to read Mill assert that at the time he was writing, a person's class or race did not determine what they could achieve, in life. Compared to the present, 19th- century England still retained a rigid class system. At the same time, the world in which Mill is living has changed drastically from what existed before, when the possibility of upward social mobility was essentially nonexistent.

In modern Europe, restrictive laws and customs have been relaxed in order to allow individuals greater freedom in what they want to pursue. While of course people have different levels of ability and not everyone is capable of performing every role, people now generally believe that "freedom of individual choice" is the system that works best for society as a whole. When people realize that they are not capable of engaging in a particular pursuit, they usually give up on it of their own accord and thus don't need restrictive laws to prevent them from doing it.

In many ways, the system that Mill describes here could be seen as less a realistic depiction of 18th-century Europe and more an aspirational one. Class and race-based restrictions still very much impacted what people were able to achieve in life, so it wasn't always the case that every person had full "freedom of individual choice." But it was also true that society was moving toward a more egalitarian, merit-based system at this time.

Gender discrimination is, then, the sole survivor of an antiquated system, which means that it should be intensely scrutinized to test if its merits still stand. There needs to be a fair, honest, and comprehensive discussion of gender inequality that doesn't rely upon flimsy assertions-such as the claim that the majority of people support the current system.

The Subjection of Women was written with input from Mill's stepdaughter Helen Taylor and his wife and lifelong collaborator, Harriet Taylor Mill. Although it is hard to know for sure how and in what way these women's contributions were incorporated, one can imagine that this is a passage that benefited from women's input. After all, given that Mill is a man himself, it is more difficult for him to authoritatively state that the version of themselves women present to men is an illusion.

The problem is not that women aim to be deceptive but that-due to their position of relative powerlessness-they have so much to lose if their husbands see something they dislike. This prevents men from really knowing women. Moreover, even if a man was to understand his wife perfectly, he still wouldn't have any knowledge about women of other cultures and classes. Similar problems play out in publishing. It is only recently that women have started being able to publish their own writing, and when they do, they must be careful not to write anything of which men would disapprove. While this is starting to change, people will only have access to women's real thoughts when there is no gender discrimination in the world of publishing.

Although Mill has devoted much time to describing the incredible difficulty of men really being able to know women, the good news is that according to the principles on which modern society is founded, it should be women themselves who determine what their role should be. Indeed, it is only via introducing this system that women's real thoughts will become clear. It doesn't make sense to restrict women from pursuits based on the idea that they are incapable of engaging in them. If they truly were incapable, then in a liberal, competitive society, they would be disqualified anyway.

Mill's emphasis on autonomy and self-determination means he believes that even if men did perfectly understand women, how women live and what they are allowed to do shouldn't be men's decision anyway.

Men often claim that a woman's natural role is to be a wife and mother. Yet this doesn't make much logical sense either, because if it were true, there wouldn't need to be any laws and customs incentivizing them to do it. Indeed, the truth is likely closer to the fact that society needs women to produce children, and this is why women are more or less forced to do so. (The same logic was used when it came to justifying systems like slavery or the forced conscription of sailors.) In the case of gender, it arguably reveals that men secretly know that marriage is not very appealing for women. If women all had freedom of choice, Mill suspects that few would choose to only be wives and mothers.

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