Haven’t been here for a while, having watched Trump be mean, demeaning and horribly nasty to several women reporters. who asked him the questions that need to be asked. But then saw this:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRXNhX0jX6R/
And decided to repeat myself here because I am convinced that Mill is correct and Trump is, as the quintessential Liberal put it: “ the most frivolous and empty (and) the most ignorant and stolid of mankind,
All the selfish propensities, the self-worship, the unjust self-preference, which exist among mankind, have their source and root in, and derive their principal nourishment from, the present constitution of the relation between men and women. Think what it is to a boy, to grow up to manhood in the belief that without any merit or any exertion of his own, though he may be the most frivolous and empty or the most ignorant and stolid of mankind, by the mere fact of being born a male he is by right the superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race: including probably some of whose real superiority to himself he has daily or hourly occasion to feel; but even if in his whole conduct he habitually follows a woman’s guidance, still, if he is a fool, she thinks that of course she is not, and cannot be, equal in ability and judgment to himself; and if he is not a fool, he does worse – he sees that she is superior to him, and believes that notwithstanding her superiority, he is entitled to command and she is bound to obey. What must be the effect on his character , of this lesson?…… The principle of the modern movement in morals and politics, is that conduct, and conduct alone, entitles to respect: that not what men are, but what they do, constitutes their claim to deference; that, above all, merit, and not birth, is the only rightful claim to power and authority…….But so long as the right of the strong to power over the weak rules in the very heart of society, the attempt to make the equal right of the weak the principle of its outward actions will always be an uphill struggle; for the law of justice, which is also that of Christianity, will never get possession of men’s inmost sentiments; they will be working against it, even when bending to it.
-John Stuart Mill: On the Subjection of Women