John Stuart Mill on “The Subjection of Women”

John Stuart Mill shows us his true beliefs in liberty for the people. Here Mill makes the pitch that women should be treated with the same level of respect and receive the same level of freedom that men do. To support this, Mill shows how slavery was once considered to be quite natural using Aristotle’s Politics as a case where slavery is used. Mill could have also used Plato’s Republic in this regard. When Plato was setting up the ideal society he created a three level classification for the society. The Guardians would be best described as the nobles of the society. The Auxiliary would enforce the Guardians and then there were the rest of the citizens. Mill shows how it was natural to artificially enforce a will upon others. For Mill after the repeal of slavery it was only a simple step to remove the unnecessary bonds of oppression that are imposed upon women. It has been shown that women are fully capable of being writers, and if the belief is held true that the Amazon women did exist, capable of running a country. Mill shows these social norms are artificially created from birth and that man run things and women just accept it. Yet in almost every case this is not held to be true. Often the roles are reversed by the man and women and if that is the case then society should accept it and be willing to make amends