The Subjection of Women

A book-length essay written in 1861 and published in 1869, in which Mill argues for full legal and social equality between women and men. He credited much of its thinking to his late wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, and to her daughter Helen Taylor. Chapter 1 argues that the subordination of women rests on force and custom rather than on any proof of its justice, and that nobody can know women's 'nature' while it is formed under such constraints. Chapter 2 attacks the marriage law of the time, under which a wife had almost no legal existence apart from her husband, and compares her position to a form of slavery. Chapter 3 argues that women should be admitted to all occupations and to the vote, and that their capacities can only be learned by letting them try. Chapter 4 describes the gains: justice within marriage, double the talent available to society, and greater happiness for both sexes.

It is one of the clearest liberal arguments for sex equality, and its point that 'natural' differences cannot be known under unequal conditions still matters in debates about gender.