Vol. 7, Issue 2, Part G (2025)

Women’s subordination is the fundamental aspect around which feminist philosophy first emerged in the United States during the 1970s. It is often claimed that as long as women’s subordination exists, feminism will persist. This assertion reflects the inherent ideas of the feminist movement that became entrenched after the 1950s. This paper re-examines women’s subordination by situating feminist debates within a broader philosophical framework. Liberal philosophers such as J.S. Mill were among the earliest to denounce women’s subordination, and the paper therefore foregrounds Mill’s critiques. Mill envisioned “perfect equality” as the replacement for women’s subordination. Nevertheless, he did not define what “perfect equality” entails, revealing a tension in his understanding of equality—whether it connotes absolute equality or not. The paper argues that Mill’s contribution is best understood as a reformist intervention that initiated the debate yet left unresolved the philosophical and political meaning of ‘equality’ per se. Ultimately, the paper contributes to feminist philosophy as well as historiography by reframing subordination as a historically contingent, philosophically contested, and politically transformable condition.