"Harriet Taylor Mill wrote like Henri Matisse painted--with
large, passionate strokes." -Jo Ellen Jacobs
Harriet Taylor Mill held strong feminist views for her time, and indeed
many of the ideas she wrote about anticipated feminist views of the future.
This section explores some of Harriet's interesting philosophical ideas.
To give credit where it is due: Most of this section is based
on Jo Ellen Jacobs' summaries in her very comprehensive book,
The Complete
Works of Harriet Taylor Mill. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1998.)
- Essay on education of women not only deplores the lack of formal
education for women, but also realizes that the restrictions on women’s social
experience prevents them from self-knowledge, happiness and growth.
Another essay states that women should be educated in order to benefit the
entire community because of their roles as teachers for their children.
- This predates the post-modernist view of social construction,
in that a woman would not be able to develop an identity if she were disconnected
from the social forces which form that identity.
- Essays on marriage and divorce call for a greater ability of women
to make choices, disagree with ownership of other people, and critique views
on sexuality. She sees the setup of marriage as laws to ensure the sexual
satisfaction of men. She is not a believer in the one-night-stand:
“No man of education more than any woman of education would derive pleasure
from mere animal gratification—there must be some mind.”
- Her belief that marriage is set up for the satisfaction of men
suggests Susan Brownmiller's radical feminist views on lesbian seperatism.
- Essays on rights of women condemn women writers who “apolog[ise]
that women exist-- apolog[ise] that they are women.” She begins to collaborate
with Mill here and notes preclude The Enfranchisement of Women , including
women’s inability to vote and participate in political activity. Harriet
wonders whether the abolition of slavery, school improvement, or prison reform
have been the result of women inspiring men to change the law.
- An early form of the idea of a feminine Ethic of Care.
- Essay on toleration: focuses on political and social pressure
against dissenting opinions, calls for thinking for oneself.
- Some of Harriet Taylor Mill's "Popular Fallacies" and "Corollaries":
- That the great object of women's life is love.
- That there must always be poor.
- That Christianity is a Philosophy. (It is the inculcation
of one single virtue-- Benevolence.)
