John Stuart Mill was one of the first western philosophers, who paid attention to women's rights. He was opposed to the views of people like Aristotle and Rousseau. Mill believed that freedom is one of the important values and clear criteria for defence of women's rights.

He maintained that observance of women's rights, in addition to making them happy, will have positive and direct impact on society. In his opinion, it was women who had to choose their way of life to achieve happiness and prosperity. John Stuart Mill resorted to metaphor to show the environmental effects of society on human being, especially women. He likened human nature to a tree, saying, "Human nature is not a machine that has been manufactured according to a design and program. It is rather a tree which should grow on all sides according to his internal potentials. Thus, intensive suppressing and violating of women's rights will turn them into 'semi-developed' creatures which will be to the benefit of men." Mill believed that most of the mental and rational inabilities and moral qualities of women stem from the environment where they have been brought up. And this has violated their rights and demands throughout history.

Before John Stuart Mill, people like Mary Steele and Mary Wollstonecraft had written much against the gender-oriented current in the 18^th century, Mill's views can be considered as the most effective feminist theory.

Stuart Mill's treatise, "Subjection of Women", was the most important feminist work of the 19^th century. In this treatise, he ruled out superiority of one sex over another. He believed in full equality of women's rights with men's; but defended the classic thought on family unit. His view, however, was criticized by next feminists like Susan Moller Okin from New Zealand. Okin wrote, "John Stuart Mill defended the classic thought of family unit because he considered unsalaried work at home like childcare as a female responsibility, and despite his belief in equality and freedom, refused to express discrimination in power and job opportunities between men and women."

Okin's view on family was more manifested in the thoughts of the 20^th century feminists. In this period, feminists, emphasizing on celibacy and renunciation of marriage and persuasion of women to demonstrate male behaviors and participate widely in economic activities, intensified this wave. The slogan of separation of women without men, struggle for separation of sexual relation from reproduction in western countries, emergence of uprising of women's freedom in every affair, which led to serious decrease of birth rate and undermining of family unit, were some of the issues that were conspicuously seen in this period.

Shulamith Firestone was a Canadian feminist who believed that the differences of men and women has a biological basis. In her opinion, the new and evolving technology, through facilitation of impregnation without direct intercourse, creation of embryo out of the womb, and bringing up the child outside family will liberate women. In view of this, family as a unit for reproduction and economy will perish and a free society will emerge free from the roles based on sexuality. Simone de Beauvoir, too, was one of these feminists. She was indeed the only voice of feminists in 1950s. She severed her ties with the bourgeois Catholic background of 1930s to have what she claimed as an independent life in Paris. De Beauvoir led a life of cohabitation with the notorious writer, Jean Paul Sartre, till the end of her life. Both of them were the staunch advocates of individual freedom of men and women. De Beauvoir explicitly wrote that marriage and motherhood are the two causes of women's misery. In 1970s, so-called neo-feminists emerged which were affected by post-modernist ideas. They insisted on keeping of female characteristics. They had accepted that woman needs family, husband and children but the relationship existing from the very birth between girls and boys is the source of difference and domination over women. This group believed in the equality of rights of women and men in family and society.

The western view of woman has always gone to extremes. Formation of feminism had originated in oppression against women but the emergence of various feminist schools not only didn't solve their problems, it further complicated their problems.

Now let us listen to or read the comments of Ms. Akhundan, expert on family affairs and women, "Feminism was the outcome of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe and Humanism is considered among the most fundamental intellectual bases of many feminists. In that era, intellectual currents were formed which gradually took social and political shape and most of them were seeking to destroy religious thought. August Comte and John Stuart Mill were the most famous advocates of "Generalization of individual humanist rights to women" and were the first leaders of liberal feminism. Liberal feminists maintained that everyone can choose whatever lifestyle they wish and others should accept it. They considered individual's sexuality quite irrelative of his/her rights and believed that the female and male nature are completely the same and there is only human and not sexuality. That's why they reject different pre-determined roles for feminine and masculine in family. They opine that what is the principle in marital relations is the joy and self-oriented pleasure of couples and not formation of family and training of children."

 We conclude this episode with the remarks of the great Muslim thinker, Ayatollah Motahhari, "Equality of the rights of man and woman in terms of material and spiritual values is something while sameness, homogeneity and uniformity is something else. In the movement of feminism, unwillingly or on purpose, equality is used instead of similarity and equality is deemed as sameness, quality is overshadowed by quantity and woman's being human causes forgetting of her womanhood. The miseries of the past mostly stemmed from the fact that woman's being human was forgotten; and the new miseries stem from the fact that, willingly or on purpose, woman's womanhood and her natural innate position, her mission, instinctive demands and special potentials have been cast into oblivion."   

RM/ME