Posts Tagged ‘ John Stuart Mill ’

The eroticization of powerlessness

Oct 19th, 2017 10:53 am | By

A bit from Mill’s Subjection of Women, because I was reminded of it by a quotation from Sheila Jeffreys:

Girls learn to love and have sexual feelings in a position of low status, and the eroticization of powerlessness is a normal part of the construction of femininity.

That’s Jeffreys; now Mill.

All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely that women should be collectively rebellious to the power of men. They are so far in a position different from all other subject classes, that their masters require something more from them than actual service. Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in

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A position different from all other subject classes

Jul 6th, 2015 2:27 pm | By

How about some John Stuart Mill.

[excitedly] Yes, please! What shall we have?

The Subjection of Women.

All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely that women should be collectively rebellious to the power of men. They are so far in a position different from all other subject classes, that their masters require something more from them than actual service. Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favourite. They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds.

The

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)