Plato and Feminism

[aeest400]

Well, I guess he's sort of a Kim Jong Il-type feminist. Would you want be a woman in Plato's Republic would be one way to consider the question. Also, if you are a philosophy minor you should write about something more central, like the forms. Even better, write about Aristotle instead. More difficult, but likely more rewarding.

[chezlaw]

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I am in an Ancient Philosophy class and am a philosophy minor. One of the potential topics we could write about is Plato's views on feminism, and it is the one I picked to write about. The reason I picked this topic is because it seemed obvious to me that I would say that Plato was definitely not a feminist and could construct a very good argument, but when we talked about it in class, and when I read some information online there were some people claiming that he was a feminist. An example of such an argument would be of this nature, " Plato wanted to create a more equitable society, and although you may argue that the rights he was allowing them were hollow as they fundamentally had no freedoms, he was still advocating greater equality for women which makes him a feminist."
I was and am curious to see what some people who are much more knowledgeable on philosophy than myself had to say about the topic.

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I agree with the view that Plato had no interest in creating an equitable society. I don't think there's anything like that in Republic but I'm hardly an expert and I've never read his more political stuff.

chez

[sigurrostyp]

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Well, I guess he's sort of a Kim Jong Il-type feminist. Would you want be a woman in Plato's Republic would be one way to consider the question. Also, if you are a philosophy minor you should write about something more central, like the forms. Even better, write about Aristotle instead. More difficult, but likely more rewarding.

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Thanks for the advice it is very much appreciated.

[guesswest]

I can't remember what text it's from, but I seem to remember Plato at one point proclaiming that those who live ethically good lives will be reincarnated as men, whereas those who sin will be reincarnated as women. Dworkin probably wouldn't be high-fiving him for that [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[madnak]

In his vision of the Republic, women and men had equal social status. That's more feminist than a lot of supposedly "liberal" people today.

I think people are missing a point here. One can hate women and still be a feminist. Feminism is about belief, and if Plato believed men and women should be considered equal, then he qualifies according to my definition. Now, he was also a misogynist - but the two aren't mutually exclusive.

[guesswest]

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In his vision of the Republic, women and men had equal social status. That's more feminist than a lot of supposedly "liberal" people today.

I think people are missing a point here. One can hate women and still be a feminist. Feminism is about belief, and if Plato believed men and women should be considered equal, then he qualifies according to my definition. Now, he was also a misogynist - but the two aren't mutually exclusive.

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I don't think that's correct - feminism concerns itself with a lot more than legal equality. And tho I take your point, I'm not sure misogyny and gender equality are mutually compatible either.

But Plato is not a feminist because he does not grant 'rights' or 'liberties' to women. He doesn't grant them to men either, he doesn't talk about these things at all. There is no concept of egalitarianism or individualism in his politics. He is simply concerned with what is better for society overall. He doesn't prescribe equality or inequality, he doesn't concern himself with the issue and he does not believe men and women or equal (or that they aren't). You can't be a feminist without caring about or addressing equality.

[madnak]

I disagree. The dictionary definition uses the term "rights" because that's the context in which most people interpret politics these days. But societal and legal equality is the core of the dictionary definition.

I used to call myself an antifeminist based on a few bad apples like Dworkin and on the Marxist and postmodernist interpretations of it. But I was raked over the coals for it a few times. Many people heard me say something like "I hate feminism," and then became offended. After I explained my position, they basically accused me of building a straw man - "feminism is just the idea that men and women are equal." Culturally speaking, the idea of gender equality is at least the more useful definition. I might relate it to "strong" versus "weak" atheism.

[guesswest]

Point taken. But there's a more fundamental problem with that as it relates to the Republic. If you're going to declare Plato a proto-feminist on the grounds that he inadvertently assigned equality to men and women (and 'inadvertently' is key, since he wasn't interested in equality or individual rights as an end), then you're saying the default position is that women do not have equality. It's a sexist axiom.

[madnak]

Well, women in Plato's society were of lower status than men. Plato's standard was a step up in terms of gender equality.

Also, female equality implies male equality. The same would have applied in a matriarchal society.

If the society was gender-neutral from the start, then I'd call Plato a feminist only in the sense that all the Greeks were feminists. But the Greeks were not feminists at all.

[AthenianStranger]

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I didn't realize John Stuart Mill was a marxist.

John Stuart Mill
The Subjection of Women (1869)
CHAPTER I

The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able grounds of an opinion which I have held from the very earliest period when I had formed any opinions at all on social political matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been constantly growing stronger by the progress of reflection and the experience of life. That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes — the legal subordination of one sex to the other — is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au..._stuart/m645s/

This looks pretty "feminist" to me. That said, whatever feminism is, Plato wasn't one.

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Well, what I mean about feminism being a form of Marxist deconstructionism is not merely in reference to the idea that men and women should be politically equal. I think this is good, and I am not a Marxist.

What I mean is that feminism as an academic study attempts to reinterpret history with the idea that men have always owned the means of production (i.e. most societies have been patriarchal). Classic understanding of history, in this mindset, is wrong because it is performed by men who take the patriarchal society for granted. In the feminist understanding, Plato would have to be seen as struggling against patriarchal rule. There is little evidence that this is the case.

Plato did of course consider questions of ownership-- but as to whether men or women owned property, he took it for granted that it was men. In The Republic it was obviously a quasi-communistic society, but it The Laws (where I get my handle) there was definite property ownership and even 4 different (not greatly variated) classes based on ownership. But as I said, he took it for granted that it was the men who owned property. In this sense he can hardly be called a feminist.

In addition, Marxism (from which academic feminism draws its arguments) is predicated upon a Hobbesian/Lockean understanding of natural law and rights. Plato understood these things (see The Laws especially for natural law) but never implicitly (nothing by Plato is explicit) formulated any philosophical doctrine of rights that could be 'violated,' as feminism argues about women.

I think there is something pretty slimy about these Marxist disciplines trying to appropriate ancient philosophy and religion for their own ends. So Plato wasn't a feminist. Doesn't mean men and women cannot have equal rights under law.