The Subjection of Women

The Subjection of Women, which Mill wrote in 1861 but did not publish until 1869, is one of the seminal texts of feminism and aroused more antagonism than anything Mill ever wrote. Conservatives predicted it would do to the English family what socialism would do to England's economy. Liberals believed that women would vote conservative. Many prominent Englishwomen, such as Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, and George Eliot, opposed women's suffrage. Even such...