A story that can surpass generations impacts the minds of its thinkers during the time period in which it was produced, therefore giving it the ability to live on for hundreds of years. Many arguments get refuted back and forth, where this dialogue lives forever in the pages of various works. Multiple themes stay constant through this debates, which is usually because they are important to those that are discussing them. A topic point that is usually stressed is justice, which ties along to equality for women. Although many older works do not specify what they exactly think about the status of women, the details reveal what the authors truly believe. Plato delves into various forms of justice within society and state to form his argument. …show more content…
Plato exploited women as a tool to have a more successful society. His approach to how he used women goes along with his philosophy of taking advantage every individual to create the best society imaginable is almost the same with he uses men, but there are certain aspects that differ and show Plato’s prejudice. This a reason for the confusion as to why many scholars believe Plato was for equal rights for women. Forde discusses how “ women are made equal in Plato's ideal city … only because Plato sees them as a pool of talent that can be put to work for the city”. Plato simply used citizens for the greater good of the state. Although he did somewhat elevate the status of women in his ideal state, Plato only did it for his ulterior motives. It was purely unintentional to potentially bring any justice to marriage. Even if he did ignore gender identity, he enforced superior gender status by his use of partnership. This can be displayed by the role of women when procreating. Pomeroy mentions that, “two times [Plato] refers to the women as the property of the male guardian”. Plato is clearly not advocating for the rights of women. He only used women for his own selfish reasons. Although the institution of marriage was eliminated; therefore removing the oppressive role of the wife, men were still able to discriminate their female partners by viewing them as property. This undoes any possible justice for women. Pomeroy also discussed how “the male guardians are chosen first, then appropriate women are to be selected to be given to them”. This enforced the fact that women are second class citizens whose opinions were not valued. Women were not allowed to hold the same preferences as men, which is wrong because it ignores what they want. Although Plato may have brought some justice to women, his problematic views of how women should interact in procreating cement
Gender Roles in Ancient Greek Society Throughout history, the roles of women and men have always differed to some degree. In ancient Greece, the traditional roles were clear-cut and defined. Women stayed home to care for children and do housework while men left to work. This system of society was not too far off the hunter gatherer concept where women cared for the house and the men hunted.
Women in ancient Greece are an interesting subject and only so much is known about the exact day to day lives of them however from what records remain it would seem that they were kept at a relatively low level on the social hierarchy. Even in Pericles ' Funeral Speech which seems to be an almost utopian discretion of aspects of Greek life Pericles himself states that “Great will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men whether for good or for bad.” Pericles states that the greatest of women should be the ones whom are not noticed but still preform there tasks while not catching the attention of men. Adding to this even the great philosopher Aristotle bags on the women of Greece simply by stating that ”female [souls are] inoperative” With this simple statement Aristotle makes it seem that women are somehow broken and can never live up to the same standards as men. Even Xenophon, The Economist rambles on...
In Ancient Greece, women had little to no freedom in their lives. For instance, they had no role in politics, leaving that completely to men, were expected to stay indoors for the majority of their lives doing household work because they were under the control of a male relative, usually being their father or husband, and they were not allowed to study medicine. These standards were set by great writers such as Aristotle who wrote of women being inferior to men. He believed women were more emotional, which is why they would be useless in politics, and they were more deceptive and mischievous. Because only men were doctors, many women were dying during childbirth due to the fact that they felt uncomfortable about having a man handle their pregnancy.
Women had very few rights, they lived as prisoners, serving men 24 hours a day. Women were sheltered from society, restricted to their husbands and their husbands houses, crying out for help and justice but there is no one to there to hear their screams. In the play Antigone when the title character had to sneak out of the house to meet up with Ismene. Ancient Greek men ruled a lot like over protective fathers with teenage daughters. Men were also scared of women gaining confidence and begin thinking on their own or worse taking action or speaking out against men, like in the play Antigone where Antigone confronts Creon by burying Polyneices after Creon strictly stated that no one bury him. If someone were to bury him, the whole Polis would stone them to death. When Creon found out that someone buried Polyneices, he did not even consider that it could have been a women that did it.
There isn’t enough literature from this time period from the lower and middle classes of society, and the view of women we have comes from writings of the upper class males. As much of an enigma that the women of Athens were, it is clear that “women were for the most part legal nonentities,” (O’Neal 117) that were denied any association and participation in the intellectual life of their city. The women were not involved in getting an education, and never learned to read or write. O’Neal writes, “The principal spokesmen of fifth century Athens, Pericles and Thucydides, disdained Athenian women.” (O’Neal 117) Based on their writing, and on surmountable evidence, it can be assumed that women had only two roles in Athens - a wife, or a mother. A girl was ideally married at 14 or 15 years of age, and there was necessity that the bride was a virgin, otherwise she was shamed and sold into
When you think of ancient Greece, you probably think of togas, polytheism, epic heros, and olives. But do you how women were treated or veiwed? There is quite a lot of evidence displayed throughout manyplays, epics and other documents. Oedipus the King and The Odyssey are two ancient Greek works of literature that exemplify their society perfectly. Ancient Greece was a patriarchial society where women were treated as objects and sex symbols and misogyny was often present.
Sophocles lived in Athens, and so his experience of women and his perception of their role in the world were formed by Athenian society. Athenian women may have lived in a different culture, but they were similar to many other Greek women in at least one respect: they were treated as entirely unequal. “In law Athenian women had no independent existence” (Blundell 114). Women were defined, controlled, and protected by their male guardians, who were their fathers, their husbands, or their eldest sons. They could not testify in court, but had to have their guardian testify for them. They were only allowed to trade in small sums, no more than the value of one measure of barley. It was theoretically possible for women to inherit property, but only if there was no male relative available. Most Athenian women were married young (from fourteen to eighteen) to men who were around thirty, which reinforced the unequal power dynamic between the spouses. Women were not educated in much more than the running of a home, and they were expected to raise a family and do little else. Women were not citizens in Athens, they could not vote, and they could not serve in political positions (Blundell 114-129). In short, in the society Sophocles lived in, women were treated as less than men, legally and
For instance, if a woman were to be the wife of a guard, then she would be expected to live at the level of that status, too. She is expected to be able to contribute to society a great deal more, rather than stay at home and take care of her children and household. Plato points out that although women are not as strong as men, they are still strong nonetheless.
The difference in expectations between men and women when it comes to loyalty promotes gender inequality, which makes the views The Odyssey has on society rather misogynistic. Homer endorsed the dominating belief of his time concerning women by treating the female characters unequally and differently compared to the male characters in The Odyssey.
Book 1 of Plato's Republic raises the question what is justice? Four views of justice are examined. The first is that justice is speaking the truth and paying one's debt. The second is that justice is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies. The third view of justice is that it is to the advantage of the stronger. The last view is that injustice is more profitable than justice.
They were definitely not. Men were absolutely disgusted at the thought of women being equal with them. In the play Antigone Creon was absolutely set that he would not be ruled by a woman or deterred by a woman as long as he was alive and king. Even though Antigone was his own family he sentenced her to death because she stood up for what she believed in. She believed and the uppers gods believed no one shall go unburied or that is considered disrespectful. If it was a man that broke the rule that Antigone did the man would have been punished but not as severely as Antigone. In line 759 it states “Better to fall from power, if fall we must , at the hands of a men- never be rated inferior to a woman never.” Women in the Asociety hated this they wanted to be treated equally but since they were considered weak and not important their opinions did not matter. So back then they were not equal.
Marriage is expressed platonically in the polis, which contrasts with the ideal of devoted monogamy in today’s society. Instead, the members in the guardian class share women along with their children, and marriage does not include living together. Plato proposes, “That all these woman are to belong in common to all the men, none are to live privately with any man” (457c-d). Plato believes that if the guardians will possess all the women and children in common, then the city will be more unified. He believes this mainly because the loyalty of
He believed that even though possibly immoral, it was necessary for a few to be ruled over. Aristotle identifies slaves as an inferior class who are only valuable for their bodies and nothing else. He compared them to lower tier animals who followed strictly instinct to survive and could not apprehend higher thinking (Ancient History Sourcebook). Aristotle, along with the majority of Athens, viewed women in a similar light. They all viewed women as inferior to men and believed that women should be ruled by men, much like slaves. Demosthenes referred to women as tools for a certain purpose, ranging from prostitutes for pleasure to wives for simply providing children. Men thought so lowly of women, that in Euripides’s drama, he introduced women as a curse to men and a venom worse than that of reptiles (What Athenian Men Said). Even though the disrespect of women and slaves was similar, the difference between the two was that women had it worse. Women seemed to have little to no freedom. They were not allowed to leave their houses, other than for religious purposes. A woman could not even choose who she
Plato indicates how women might live is a man's world, but there is little doubt that it is a man's world. Women might become guardians, but only by becoming honorary men: by having, men make room for them. Woman will be equally responsible for enforcing the laws and establishing which traits are to be valued. They will be socialized into a Patriarchy. Patriarchy is based on an ideology of men's superiority over women. Plato's philosopher-queens will be unable to overcome
For Plato’s thesis – justice pays – to be validated, he has to prove two things, the first being that justice is inherently good. In