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Women In Plato's The Republic

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In Plato’s the Republic, Plato, in the voice of Socrates, discusses virtue and what the word means. In doing so he spends a good amount of the discussion describing the “ideal” city which he calls the Republic. Many of the elements of this city seem far-fetched and very theoretical, especially the ones concerning women and children. Plato advocates that women should be educated along with men and take up governmental positions. Additionally, he believes that all wives and children should be held in common. This view is controversial, to say the least. In Aristotle’s Politics, he actually brings up these topics and comments on them. In this paper, I will present some Aristotle’s thoughts on the role of women and the family seen in the Republic …show more content…

Specifically for the Guardian class, both sexes would be represented. In order to ensure a competent ruling class, men and women alike would be educated in the same ways. This is a relatively progressive idea given that it did not align with conventional Greek thought, especially since at the time Athens did not recognize women as citizens. Despite this thinking, Plato still holds the belief that women are inferior to men, saying: “it’s true that one sex is much superior to the other in pretty well everything” (455d). He then goes on to say “although many women are better than men in many things” (455d). Based on Plato’s assertions it is clear that he views women as inferior as a whole to men, but not enough to justify excluding them from governing and playing significant roles in the city. Elaborating on this Plato states “men and women are by nature the same with respect to guarding the city, except to the extent that one is weaker” (456a). It follows that women contain the qualities needed to be guardians, albeit to a lesser degree. Although one may be weaker because of their sex, it does not suffice to hold them back if they contain the qualities needed for being a guardian. With this in mind, the divisions between classes based on talents and qualities are more important than those along

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