Rights of Women

About this Collection

During the French Revolution a number of men and women began to argue in favor of granting women full civic and legal rights. In France this was taken up by Condorcet and Olympes de Gouge; in Britain by Mary Wollstonecraft. During the nineteenth century, whilst a Member of Parliament, John Stuart Mill, argued for the same thing.

Key People

Titles & Essays

THE READING ROOM

A Novel Education

By: Caroline Breashears

From: Caroline Breashears
Date: 5 March, 2022
To: Garth Bond
Cc: OLL
Subject: Dangerous Reading Room Liaisons

THE READING ROOM

Abigail and John Adams Disagree Over the Rights of Women

By: Steve Ealy

In a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams announces to John that spring has lightened her mood. “I feel a gaiety de Coar to which before I was a stranger.” Her light mood did not prevent her from raising heavy topics, however.…
On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship

Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (author)

Condorcet’s essay is an early defence of the right of women to particpate in politcs. It was written during the first years of the French Revolution.

LIBERTY MATTERS

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXI - Essays on Equality, Law, and Education

John Stuart Mill (author)

Vol. 21 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on the law, women and children, the American Civil War, and his book on The Subjection of Women. It also contains in the Appendix Harriet Taylor’s works On…

THE READING ROOM

Considering The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

By: Renee Wilmeth

“It was a beautiful place – wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien disturbing, secret loveliness. And it kept its secret. I’d find myself thinking, ‘What I see is nothing – I want what it hides – that is not nothing.”…

THE READING ROOM

Female Friendship and Grady Hendrix’s Horror

By: Sarah Skwire

I’ve never really been a fan of horror fiction. With the exception of spooky Victorian gothic novels, a long-standing affection for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the occasional particularly creepy Neil Gaiman moment, I just don’t…

LIBERTY MATTERS

Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography, 2 vols.

Harriet Martineau (author)

Thinking she was close to death Martineau wrote her autobiography in 1855 but lived for another 20 years. She recounts her activities in various mid-19th century reform movements, her struggle to become a professional writer, and her…

Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography, vol. 1

Harriet Martineau (author)

Thinking she was close to death Martineau wrote her autobiography in 1855 but lived for another 20 years. She recounts her activities in various mid-19th century reform movements, her struggle to become a professional writer, and her…

Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography, vol. 2 and Memorials of Harriet Martineau

Maria Weston Chapman (author)

Thinking she was close to death Martineau wrote her autobiography in 1855 but lived for another 20 years. She recounts her activities in various mid-19th century reform movements, her struggle to become a professional writer, and her…

LIBERTY MATTERS

LIBERTY MATTERS

Harriet Taylor Mill on Marriage and Divorce (March/April 2024)

By: Giandomenica Becchio

In this Liberty Matters online discussion we assess the ideas of Harriet Taylor Mill and her partnership with John Stuart Mill. The authors often draw on Taylor Mill and Mill’s correspondence, edited by Friedrich von Hayek in 1951.…

LIBERTY MATTERS

THE READING ROOM

In the Reading Room with Plato and Feminism

By: Aeon J. Skoble

In previous columns I’ve discussed some reasons why there are insightful contributions from Plato that contemporary audiences might benefit from thinking about. Here’s another: his feminism. For the most part we don’t think of the…

THE READING ROOM

Kato Mikeladze at the Beginnings of Georgian Feminism

By: Irakli Javakhishvili

A hundred years ago, even in the most difficult political situation, when the Tsarist Russian Empire was collapsing and Georgia was fighting for independence, there were fearless women who fought for equality and emancipation of…

THE READING ROOM

OLL’s April Birthday: Mary Wollstonecraft (April 27, 1759- September 10, 1797)

By: Peter Carl Mentzel

This month’s featured birthday anniversary is the English philosopher, writer, and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Perhaps best known for her book Vindication of the Rights of Women, she was crucially important in the arguments about…
On Liberty and The Subjection of Women (1879 ed.)

John Stuart Mill (author)

Mill had been somewhat coy about publishing The Subjection of Women during his lifetime because he feared the condemnation of his peers for daring to apply the general notions of individual liberty which he had clearly spelled out in…

THE READING ROOM

Reading A Room of One’s Own: Parts 1&2

By: Janet Bufton

Everyone wants to have read Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Nowhere near as many have read it. I got to it (finally) in 2021. Read along with me, it’s past time.

THE READING ROOM

Reading A Room of One’s Own: Parts 3&4

By: Janet Bufton

Returning to A Room of One’s Own, we find ourselves in the home—the room—of Woolf’s narrator, Mary. Having made her observations out in the world, she returns here to tease out and develop her thoughts. Disappointed with her trip to…

THE READING ROOM

Reading A Room of One’s Own: Parts 5&6

By: Janet Bufton

In the concluding chapters of A Room of One’s Own, Woolf returns her narrator, Mary, to the present. Woolf then, finally, lends her own voice to the piece.
The Subjection of Women (1878 ed.)

John Stuart Mill (author)

Mill took up the cause of women’s rights in the face of much opposition from his colleagues in Parliament. In addition to his parliamentary speeches on the matter his most extended defense of the right of women to own property and to…

Sur l’admission des femmes au droit au cité

Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (author)

A facsimile of the first edition of this essay. Condorcet’s essay is an early defence of the right of women to particpate in politcs. It was written during the first years of the French Revolution.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft (author)

Wollstonecraft first defended the rights of men in response to Burke’s pamphlet on the French Revolution, then turned to the rights of woman a couple of years later. It is one of the key texts of modern feminist thought.

THE READING ROOM

Virginia Woolf in the Modern Art Museum: Marginalia of One’s Own

By: Sarah Skwire

I recently had a chance to spend a morning at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm’s museum of modern art. Though I admit to a preference for Medieval and Renaissance art, Stockholm seems to bring out the modernist in me, and I wanted to…

THE READING ROOM

Why Marvel’s Black Widow Would Love Mary Wollstonecraft

By: Caroline Breashears

In Marvel's film Black Widow (2021), the Red Guardian (Alexei) praises the achievements of the two women he had pretended to father as part of a Russian sleeper cell: "Yelena, you went on to become the greatest child assassin the…
Loading...

Quotes

Women’s Rights

Frederick Douglass on Women’s Right to Vote

Frederick Douglass

Women’s Rights

Harriet Taylor wants to see “freedom and admissibility” in all areas of human activity replace the system of “privilege and exclusion” (1847)

Harriet Taylor

Women’s Rights

J.S. Mill denounced the legal subjection of women as “wrong in itself” and as “one of the chief hindrances to human improvement” (1869)

John Stuart Mill

Women’s Rights

J.S. Mill in “The Subjection of Women” argued that every form of oppression seems perfectly natural to those who live under it (1869)

John Stuart Mill

Women’s Rights

J.S. Mill on the wife as the “actual bondservant of her husband” in the 19th century (1869)

John Stuart Mill

Women’s Rights

J.S. Mill spoke in Parliament in favour of granting women the right to vote, to have “a voice in determining who shall be their rulers” (1866)

John Stuart Mill

Property Rights

J.S. Mill’s great principle was that “over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign” (1859)

John Stuart Mill

Women’s Rights

James Mill on Women and Representative Government

James Mill

Women’s Rights

John Stuart Mill uses an analogy with the removal of protective duties and bounties in trade to urge a similar “Free Trade” between the sexes (1869)

John Stuart Mill

Women’s Rights

Mary Wollstonecraft believes that women are no more naturally subservient than men and nobody, male or female, values freedom unless they have had to struggle to attain it (1792)

Mary Wollstonecraft

Women’s Rights

Mary Wollstonecraft likens the situation of soldiers under a tyrant king to women under a tyrant husband (1792)

Mary Wollstonecraft

Women’s Rights

Mary Wollstonecraft on Women’s Education

Mary Wollstonecraft

Women’s Rights

Mary Wollstonecraft’s “I have a dream” speech from 1792

Mary Wollstonecraft

Women’s Rights

The Women of Seneca Falls and William Blackstone

Sir William Blackstone