“I deny that anyone knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another.”

— John Stuart Mill , The Subjection of Women

Source: The Subjection of Women (1869), Ch. 1
Context: I deny that anyone knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. If men had ever been found in society without women, or women without men, or if there had been a society of men and women in which the women were not under the control of the men, something might have been positively known about the mental and moral differences which may be inherent in the nature of each. What is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing — the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others.

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John Stuart Mill 179

British philosopher and political economist 1806–1873

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