He equates the current system of inequality to slavery, stating that “from the earliest twilight of human society, every woman (owing the value attached to her by men, combined with her inferiority in muscular strength) was found in a state of bondage to some man” (Mill, 389). He subsequently lambasts the conservative argument that this inequity is natural due to its continued existence, stating that such an assertion is insufficient to justifying a system which he posits owes itself to the institution of slavery (Mill 390). Later, he states that women are, from the outset, indoctrinated into this subordination, arguing that men relegate them to “meekness, submissiveness, and resignation of all individual will” as to make them attractive (Mill, 391). On the following page, he states that the “nature of women is an eminently artificial thing -- the result of forced repression” and that this repression is manifest in the institution of marriage (Mill, …show more content…
One cannot deny the role women had in their subordination, Wollstonecraft rightfully lambasted the unapologetic pursuit of stereotypically feminine values of her time such as “elegance” as a distraction from the accruement of intellect and understanding, which invariably leads to ignorance of their inferiority (therefore making them culpable in it) (Wollstonecraft 368). As for education, it is often called ‘the great equalizer’ for good reason, if women were afforded an education equal in rigor and substance to men in her time period, I suspect that equality akin to the levels enjoyed currently would have been achieved much