Women and Power Midterm

I hate the first writing assignment for new professors...you really just never know. But here it is:

A central question in feminist thought is “Why women?” Why is it the female of the species who is commonly subjected to greater inequalities than the male? Two key writers in feminist literature on the subordination of women are John Stuart Mill and Sherry Ortner. In this paper, I will compare an excerpt from Mill’s “The Subjection of Women” with Ortner’s “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?.” In analyzing the Ortner and Mill’s articles, I will first historically and culturally contextualize both authors. I will then explore each author’s definition of “nature,” considering how they view human, female, and male natures and assessing how they use these understandings to explain woman’s subordination. The strengths and limitations of these perspectives will be evaluated, both independently and in comparison to the other. I will argue that Mill believes that, through culture, women’s emancipation becomes possible, while Ortner believes that, through culture, we are currently further subordinating women.
John Stuart Mill lived in 19th century England. A philosopher, he served as a member of the British Parliament, where he campaigned for women’s suffrage. In 1859, he published “On Liberty.” Two years later saw the publication of “The Subjugation of Women,” an excerpt of which I will analyze here. Sherry Beth Ortner lives in 20th and 21st century America (born 1941). A cultural anthropologist, her academic work is focused on the Sherpas in Nepal, but she is well-known in feminist studies for her 1972 article explored her.
The different objectives, academic groundings, nationalities, and timeframes of these two authors are readily apparent in their work. Mill primarily writes in the language of law and is focused on women’s subjection in English society; Ortner writes in the language of culture and is concerned with the universal devaluation of women. The law-culture distinction extends to their discourse on human nature: Mill speaks of human conditions and human nature being apparent under the “law of force,” believing that human societies can move from these laws of force into “social laws. ” Ortner explicitly uses the language of “nature” versus “culture,” while acknowledging that these are social constructed categories without discrete boundaries .
Defining Natures
In discussing “nature,” it is important to distinguish between individual and community natures. “Human nature” has been used to refer both to the state of humankind without institutions and social structures (one is reminded of Hobbes’ “nasty, brutish, and short” depiction of life prior to the state) and to the impulses and desires of individual humans without social pressures affecting personal decisions. Certainly the two are related; after all, it is humans that make up society. But in a dialectical framework, society also “makes up” (that is, affects, helps to shape) individuals. Mill and Ortner both focus on the societal level, but we can read implicitly (and occasionally explicitly) their opinions of individual human natures as well.
One definition of “nature” is simply what is “biological,” that which exists in physiological reality, our genes and bodily structures. One argument for women’s subordination rests on “biological determinism,” the idea that “[t]here is something genetically inherent in the male of the species that makes them the naturally dominant sex; that ‘something’ is lacking in females. ” Mill and Ortner both reject biological determinism, but Ortner does so more strongly and explicitly. The explicitness of Ortner’s rejection may simply be a matter of timing: Ortner was writing in a time when the language of biological determinism was widely used in academia; Mill wrote before it was a relevant term. Ortner declares that while biology is not necessarily irrelevant in sexual differences, biological “facts and differences only take on significance of superior/inferior within the framework of culturally defined value systems. ” Mill asserts that “the opinion in favour of the present system, which entirely subordinates the weaker sex to the stronger, rests upon theory only; for there never has been trial made of any other,” but he also states that the female has “inferiority in muscular strength. ” This he does to explain historically why women have been and were able to be enslaved by men, but I think a blanket statement such as this asserting an absolute biological difference is harmful to any feminist argument.
Discarding biological determinism, Mill and Ortner turn instead to the ways in which humans have constructed societies. Here is the first major difference between Mill and Ortner. Mill begins his narrative of moving from human nature to societal conditions with the legal system. Ortner begins much earlier with the first creations of culture itself, before it was legally codified. The passages below reflect this difference, and the difference in scope of the two authors. Ortner is seeking to answer her universal question “What could there be in the generalized structure and conditions of existence, common to every culture, that would lead every culture to devalue women? ” Mill, focused on subordination in English society, is seeking to ask a similar question focused solely on British culture and legal codes.
Mill:
“the adoption of this system of inequality never was the result of deliberation, or forethought, or any social ideas, or any notion whatever of what conducted to the benefit of humanity or the good order to society. It arose simply from the fact that from the very earliest twilight of human society, every woman (owing to the value attached to her by men, combined with her inferiority in muscular strength) was found in a state of bondage to some man. Laws and systems of polity always begin by recognizing the relations they find already existing between individuals. They convert what was a mere physical fact into a legal right...5” Ortner:
“...Now it seems that there is only one thing that would fit that category, and that is ‘nature’ in the most generalized sense. Every culture…is engaged in the process of generating and sustaining systems…by means of which humanity transcends the givens of natural existence, bends them to its purposes, controls them in its interest. We may thus equate culture broadly with the notion of human consciousness, or with the products of human consciousness (i.e., systems of thought and technology), by means of which humanity attempts to rise above and assert control, however minimally, over nature6” (emphasis mine).
Mill argues that “from the very earliest twilight of human society, every woman…was found in a state of bondage to some man. ” It is tempting to assert that this must then be Mill’s version of female nature: Women are bound to men. But the “human society” phrase saves him from this damning (from a feminist perspective) conclusion. This passage does not address female nature but rather female’s lot in human society. Ortner’s assertion that culture’s main aim is to “assert control…over nature ” applies to women as women are viewed as “closer to nature” and thus something to be risen above. For Ortner, then, women are subjugated as part of man’s attempt to overcome nature.
“the pan-cultural devaluation of woman could be accounted for, quite simply, by postulating that woman is being identified with, or symbolically associated with, nature, as opposed to man, who is identified with culture. Since it is always culture’s project to subsume and transcend nature, if woman is a part of nature, then culture would find it ‘natural’ to subordinate, not to say oppress, her. ”
Strongly implicit is the idea that it is human nature to control one’s surroundings and nature. This desire of humans to control their surroundings is explicit in Mill, particularly in regard to the control of other individuals: “for every one who desires power, desires it most over those who are nearest to him, with whom his life is passed, with whom he has most concerns in common, and in whom any independence of his authority is oftenest likely to interfere with his individual preferences. ”
Mill and Ortner both believe that humans have the strong desire to control their surroundings. This can include both nature (the ecological environment, life other than humans) and other individuals (especially those in close relation to the person). But what do they believe specifically about the differences, or lack thereof, between female and male natures?
Ortner, having posited women’s apparent “closeness” to nature as the reason for her subjection, spends a good deal of time exploring whether or not this is true and why women are seen in this light. She states that there are a greater number of “natural procreative functions specific to women alone. ” Pregnancy, breastfeeding, and menstruation are key examples. In Ortner’s argument, then, though biological determinism is not legitimized as a justification for sexual inequalities, it can be used as an explanation for why sexual inequalities exist. But though “[s]he may seem more in the possession of nature than man,” “having consciousness, she thinks and speaks; she generates, communicates, and manipulates symbols, categories, and values. She participates in human dialogues not only with other women, but also with men. ”
Mill asserts that we simply do not and cannot know what female and male natures are, nor can we claim that the current system works better than previous systems: “Experience cannot possibly have decided between two courses, so long as there has only been experience of one. ”
“Neither does it avail anything to say that the nature of the two sexes adapts them to their present functions and position, and renders these appropriate to them. Standing on the ground of common sense and the constitution of the human mind, I deny that any one 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…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.13”
Strengths and Limitations: A Comparative Critique
Mill can be critiqued for his somewhat fantastical telling of British humanity’s history (“from the very earliest twilight of human society ”) and his overgeneralizations (blanket statements are used often, as seen in the women have “inferiority in muscular strength14” comment). Because Mill is focused on British society and writing primarily to other English males of privilege, his arguments are very Western-focused. Though we cannot fairly “critique” him for this, as this focus is his stated purpose, it does mean that his arguments cannot be fully applied to women’s subjugation beyond English society.
Because Ortner is focused on universal issues rather than telling a specific historical narrative as Mill does, her arguments can be applied to global women’s subordination, unlike Mill’s. But with this attempt at universalism also comes a flaw. Ortner has also been critiqued for her blanket statements, most notably the assertion that “The secondary status of woman in society is one of the true universals, a pan-cultural fact. ” A “golden rule” in anthropology is to not make universal statements about all cultures without attending to their complexities, and yet here Ortner is basing an article on this claimed universal “fact.”
Secondly, Ortner’s discussion of women’s biology as closer to nature is highly problematic. Biology itself is socially constructed and shaped by culture, but Ortner does not allow for this, instead making comments such as how menstruation necessarily “interrupts” the woman . This does not necessarily need to be entirely true; after all, people rarely speak of eating or using the restroom as “interrupting” men and women, and yet both are bodily functions that take away from “more cultured” activities. The parts of woman’s physiology that center on reproduction are constructed as interruptions and problems, not biologically mandated to be so. Mill avoids this problem by not discussing the particulars of women’s role in reproduction, instead voicing the possible worry that women will not choose to engage in reproduction of rational free will, and so “it is necessary to compel them ” using social laws. But he does not believe this to be the case, seeing instead men’s true fear as a worry that women might “insist that marriage should be on equal conditions17.” And that is precisely what he is arguing for.
Both articles, in extracting gender as the single causal factor and assuming heteronormativity (including a statement from Mill on “the natural attraction between opposite sexes ”), fail to address all women’s experiences or fully explain women’s subordination.
Culture: The Trap or the Escape?
Mill and Ortner come to very different conclusion about the role of culture in subordinating women. Mill sees his modern society and the role of social law rather than the law of force as a way through which “human beings...are free to employ their faculties ” rather than being trapped living according to rules of brute force alone. His solution to women’s subordination is thus to ensure legal equality so that social law emancipates women in the same way it did for black slaves sixty years before Mill wrote “The Subjection of Women.” Ortner, contrarily, focuses on how culture attempts to control nature, and since men are viewed as closer to culture and women closer to nature, men attempt to control women. Social laws and culture, then, rather than emancipating women, are further subjugating them, and will continue to do so until men and women are “equally involved in projects of creativity and transcendence. ”
These different views of culture’s role in the subjugation of women result in differing beliefs about the origin of gender inequality and the human condition. For Mill, women were in bondage to men in uncultured societies based upon the rule of law due to their physical weakness relative to men. Ortner provides no conception of gender roles prior to culture, apparently arguing for culture as the original subjugator. Which of these is true would be incredibly difficult to prove. Though neither argument fully explains women’s subordination, nor will either proposed solution successfully bring about the entirety of women’s emancipation, both viewpoints are important to raise and be a part of the greater discussion. 

1. John Stuart Mill, excerpt from “The Subjection of Women,” in Feminist Frameworks: Alternative Theoretical Accounts of the Relations Between Men and Women 3rd ed., ed. Alison M. Jaggar and Paula S. Rothenberg (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), 251.
2. Sherry Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature Is To Culture?,” Feminist Studies 1 (1972), 10.
3. Ortner, “Is Female to Male,” 9.
4. Ortner, “Is Female to Male,” 9.
5. Mill, “The Subjection of Women,” 151.
6. Ortner, “Is Female to Male,” 10.
7. Mill, “The Subjection of Women,” 151.
8. Ortner, “Is Female to Male,” 10.
9. Ortner, “Is Female to Male,” 11-12.
10. Mill, “The Subjection of Women,” 152.
11. Ortner, “Is Female to Male,” 12.
12. Ortner, “Is Female to Male,” 15.
13. Mill, “The Subjection of Women,” 156.
14. Mill, “The Subjection of Women,” 151.
15. Ortner, “Is Female to Male,” 5.
16. Ortner, “Is Female to Male,” 13.
17. Mill, “The Subjection of Women,” 158.
18. Mill, “The Subjection of Women,” 153.
19. Mill, “The Subjection of Women,” 154.
20. Ortner, “Is Female to Male,” 28.


Bibliography
Mill, John Stuart. Excerpt from “The Subjection of Women.” In Feminist Frameworks: Alternative Theoretical Accounts of the Relations Between Men and Women 3rd ed., edited by Alison M. Jaggar and Paula S. Rothenberg, 150-58. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993.
Ortner, Sherry. “Is Female to Male as Nature Is To Culture?” Feminist Studies 1 (1972): 5-31.