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The Subjection of Women · Theme

Tyranny of Custom and Feeling

How The Subjection of Women develops Tyranny of Custom and Feeling.

Mill identifies deeply rooted custom and emotional prejudice, rather than rational argument, as the main obstacles to women's emancipation, noting that such feelings resist logical refutation.

Where it surfaces

  • Chapter III

    Mill criticizes the custom of excluding women from public life and the pretense that it is for their own good, which he sees as a form of tyranny.