J.S. Mill on the Subjection of Women

It is surely a striking fact, though some may also find it an awkward fact, that the most celebrated and influential statement of the case for feminism in nineteenth-century Britain was written by a man. From its publication in 1869, John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women enjoyed an immediate and lasting success: it was reprinted twice within the first six months, two further editions appearing in the United States in the same period, and it was almost immediately translated into French, German, Danish, Italian, Polish, and Russian. Throughout the last hundred years it has continued to be one of the most widely quoted – and widely attacked – books on the subject, and no less than three new editions of it have appeared in the last ten years as part of the general boom in feminist publishing both in Britain and America. As one might expect, the tone of much of the discussion aroused by the book has been marked more by partisan enthusiasm than detached scholarship, a situation which its passionately and self-consciously radical author would have welcomed.