¶ … John Stuart Mill say is the relationship between the subjection of women and education? What changes in education does Mill propose? How have the increased educational opportunities for women affected the relationship between the sexes in 21st century society?
John Stuart Mill called women a class of legal slaves and condemned the lack of female access to education. The enforced ignorance of women created a divide between the genders and hindered rather than promoted happiness in marriage. Mill demanded equal legal status for women under the law, and also equal access to education for both sexes. Mill believed that the environment was the predominate factor in shaping a human being's character. By changing the educational status of women, the nature of women, men, and children would also change.
Expanded opportunities for 21st century women do not merely mean that women have greater ability to find emotional fulfillment in their work: women are also more economically empowered within society. Before, if a middle-class woman was abandoned by her husband or remained unmarried, she had almost no choices in life, other than to work in a poorly paying job (such as a governess) or to remain with her family. A woman's property reverted to her husband's control when she married. Women thus had little leverage if their husbands mistreated them. Today, female parity in educational opportunities mean that women have the ability to say 'no' to men -- no to marriage, or to walk away from a marriage that is not satisfying or abusive.
2. Discuss How Carol Ann Duffy's poem "Medusa" and "Warming Her Pearls" illustrate the concept of otherness.
The 'otherness' of Carol Anne Duffy's mythologically-inspired poem "Medusa" is actually about a very common phenomenon. A woman, once beautiful, is rendered hideous by the specter of jealousy. Her former lover perceives her as hideous, because he no longer desires her and she becomes ugly as a result of his unjust treatment: "I stared in the mirror./Love gone bad/showed me a Gorgon….Wasn't I beautiful/Wasn't I fragrant and young?" Gorgons are produced in the perceptions of the male gaze, not in reality.
In "Warming Her Pearls" the servant of a fine lady waits, half-burning with desire, half with pride, thinking about the beauty of her mistress and how the lady will look with the pearls the servant is "warming" around her own neck. The servant is deemed 'other' by society, of an entirely different class than the mistress. The servant seems grateful simply to simply be employed to an individual of high-born status. The 'otherness' between the two women is so great, the servant does not even seem to perceive herself as part of the same substance as the lady. She has no jealousy of the fact that the lady does not work, and seems to not fully understand the sensual implications of the fact she is wearing the lady's jewels and intimately touches the lady to prepare her for the ball.
3. Mrs. Warrens Profession illustrates three different possibilities for Victorian women: Prostitution, marriage, or living as a New Woman. What do these three possibilities say about each other? What attitudes toward marriage are projected in the play? How is marriage equated with prostitution? What moral and ethical questions about respectable society does Shaw raise?
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