afaithu's review against another edition
1.0
I read it for school and found it super boring at the time. Perhaps a reread on my own terms would brighten my experience.
izzatiidrus's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Published in 1869, this is an essay by John Stuart Mill, a political economist. I recognized the name from studying economics (he was known for utilitarianism) but I did not know he was an advocate for women's rights until I saw this book at the bookstore.
Admittedly, this book was one of the hardest reads for me this year because of the use of old English and the subject matter concerning the legal and social matters in England back in the 1800s. That being said though, what I could actually discern from reading this was pretty mind-blowing to me. For example, a woman had no rights of the children she birthed, because they all belonged to the husband. Should the husband die, the children could be taken away from her unless he wrote a will to give his rights to her at the event of his death. Yet it was both a law and custom that every woman should marry and bear children.
The essay talks about gender inequality and how it affects marriage, occupation, society, women and men. His arguments are pretty interesting and very colourful - he maintains that a wife is worse than a slave (back in 1800s England) and anything that says a wife/husband should be subordinate to the other in a marriage is a "relic of primitive barbarism".
Mill actually mentioned Mary Wollstonecraft's (the mother of Mary Shelley, Frankenstein's author) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which I bought at the same time I did this one. I can't wait to read it even though I do fear that there might be even more language barriers for me, since that one was written even earlier than this one.
Admittedly, this book was one of the hardest reads for me this year because of the use of old English and the subject matter concerning the legal and social matters in England back in the 1800s. That being said though, what I could actually discern from reading this was pretty mind-blowing to me. For example, a woman had no rights of the children she birthed, because they all belonged to the husband. Should the husband die, the children could be taken away from her unless he wrote a will to give his rights to her at the event of his death. Yet it was both a law and custom that every woman should marry and bear children.
The essay talks about gender inequality and how it affects marriage, occupation, society, women and men. His arguments are pretty interesting and very colourful - he maintains that a wife is worse than a slave (back in 1800s England) and anything that says a wife/husband should be subordinate to the other in a marriage is a "relic of primitive barbarism".
Mill actually mentioned Mary Wollstonecraft's (the mother of Mary Shelley, Frankenstein's author) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which I bought at the same time I did this one. I can't wait to read it even though I do fear that there might be even more language barriers for me, since that one was written even earlier than this one.
sibirka's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Impressive
abbbooks's review against another edition
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
5.0
Пока я лежу в больнице, дослушала книгу философа Джона Стюарта Милля «О подчинении женщины».
О Милле впервые услышала на курсе по модернизму и постмодернизму Уэслианского Университета США. Он был вундеркиндом, гениальным, прогрессивным мужчиной, который писал о правах женщин аж в 19-м веке.
Самое «прекрасное» в том, что я читаю философа 19-го века в 21-м, а не так-то много изменилось в базовом понимании сути женщины со стороны общества.
Кто из вас, девушки, не выслушивал в наше время хоть раз слова о том, что «куда ты лезешь, ну зачем тебе в руководители / свой бизнес / такая зарплата?», ты же всё равно выйдешь замуж, забеременеешь и будешь дома сидеть с детьми, готовить на кухне?
Много интересных деталей, к примеру, в прошлом мужу принадлежала жизнь и смерть жены, и если он, к примеру, её ☠️, у него было относительно нестрогое наказание. А если жена ☠️ мужа, её жгли на костре.
Почему жизнь женщины должна вертеться вокруг чувства любви и отношений? Ну бесит же!
Весёлая книга, у женщин после прослушивания могут быть интересные спецэффекты.
О Милле впервые услышала на курсе по модернизму и постмодернизму Уэслианского Университета США. Он был вундеркиндом, гениальным, прогрессивным мужчиной, который писал о правах женщин аж в 19-м веке.
Самое «прекрасное» в том, что я читаю философа 19-го века в 21-м, а не так-то много изменилось в базовом понимании сути женщины со стороны общества.
Кто из вас, девушки, не выслушивал в наше время хоть раз слова о том, что «куда ты лезешь, ну зачем тебе в руководители / свой бизнес / такая зарплата?», ты же всё равно выйдешь замуж, забеременеешь и будешь дома сидеть с детьми, готовить на кухне?
Много интересных деталей, к примеру, в прошлом мужу принадлежала жизнь и смерть жены, и если он, к примеру, её ☠️, у него было относительно нестрогое наказание. А если жена ☠️ мужа, её жгли на костре.
Почему жизнь женщины должна вертеться вокруг чувства любви и отношений? Ну бесит же!
Весёлая книга, у женщин после прослушивания могут быть интересные спецэффекты.
kansass's review against another edition
3.0
Mill es un tanto paternalista en muchos de sus argumentos pero por otra parte hay que reconocerle el valor de que en plena época victoriana se lanzara a razonar y analizar un tema tabú y casi prohibido.
londonfog86's review against another edition
5.0
Taking into account historical context and that women had yet to have a voice in matters of original thought (the few exceptions of ladies like Aphra Behn and the Wollstonecraft women being rare or at least rarely preserved), this was an amazingly open view.
nwhyte's review against another edition
5.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1703651.html
Mill's argument here is in favour of political equality between the sexes, in particular that woman should be allowed to vote, a proposition to which he gently demolishes all the opposing arguments. He is less passionate than Wollstonecraft but has better one-liners:
"Women who read, much more women who write, are, in the existing constitution of things, a contradiction and a disturbing element... "
"...laws and institutions require to be adapted, not to good men, but to bad."
"If no one could vote for a Member of Parliament who was not [themselves] a fit candidate, the government would be a narrow oligarchy indeed."
I was also struck by his invocation of women rulers throughout history, in particular:
"The Emperor Charles the Fifth, the most politic prince of his time, who had as great a number of able men in his service as a ruler ever had, and was one of the least likely of all sovereigns to sacrifice his interest to personal feelings, made two princesses of his family successively Governors of the Netherlands, and kept one or other of them in that post during his whole life (they were afterwards succeeded by a third). Both ruled very successfully, and one of them, Margaret of Austria, as one of the ablest politicians of the age."
Mill's argument here is in favour of political equality between the sexes, in particular that woman should be allowed to vote, a proposition to which he gently demolishes all the opposing arguments. He is less passionate than Wollstonecraft but has better one-liners:
"Women who read, much more women who write, are, in the existing constitution of things, a contradiction and a disturbing element... "
"...laws and institutions require to be adapted, not to good men, but to bad."
"If no one could vote for a Member of Parliament who was not [themselves] a fit candidate, the government would be a narrow oligarchy indeed."
I was also struck by his invocation of women rulers throughout history, in particular:
"The Emperor Charles the Fifth, the most politic prince of his time, who had as great a number of able men in his service as a ruler ever had, and was one of the least likely of all sovereigns to sacrifice his interest to personal feelings, made two princesses of his family successively Governors of the Netherlands, and kept one or other of them in that post during his whole life (they were afterwards succeeded by a third). Both ruled very successfully, and one of them, Margaret of Austria, as one of the ablest politicians of the age."
irenerdguez's review against another edition
5.0
Although Mill's ultimate goal, the establishment of a “complete equality in all legal, political, social and domestic relations” between men and women has not yet been achieved, I think that his contribution in the struggle for women's liberation sowed the seeds for future battles. I especially like his approach to marriage, since in Victorian society the ideal model for women was based on Patmore's poem "The Angel in the House", written just 15 years earlier. In Joan M. Hoffman's words, the women who embodied the ideal Victorian feminine were devoted mothers as well as submissive wives; in fact, Mill describes the relationship between husband and wife in terms of slavery. I think it is quite revolutionary that a man publicly rejected the Cult of Domesticity in the 19th century, especially since at that time the two gendered spheres imposed by Locke's model were still patent. However, Mill asserted that a society cannot be “half patriarchal and half equalitarian, half slave and half free”; thereby, he broke with Locke’s patriarchal division between public and private, and insisted that both spheres were too interconnected to separate them. Moreover, by analyzing marriage as a master-servant relationship, he showed that the legal subordination of one sex to the other is based, mainly, on women’s lack of rights within the marriage, which led to their exclusion from political life. All in all, "The Subjection of Women" seems to me a kind of prelude to later works such as Virginia Woolf's "Professions for Women", in which she states that the "Angel in the House" had to be killed.