“Good housekeeping”? Re-assessing John Stuart Mill’s position on the gendered division of labour

This paper considers an oft-criticised passage of John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women, arguing that Mill’s position is misunderstood. In this passage, Mill identifies a trilemma facing women in non-ideal circumstances. Two elements of this can be satisfied, but not all three, so long as men continue to refuse to perform their domestic responsibilities. In these non-ideal circumstances, Mill privileges justice over autonomy – women ought only to be asked to do their fair share of labour, which, if they chose to marry and have children, will mean it is unfair to ask them also to work full-time outside the home