Women's Role In Athenian Society

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This information should give an overall background at what society in Athens looked like at this time. Plato’s point of view is how society should be diverging from the reality of Athenian society. Plato’s theoretical society gives women chances they were not offered in Athenian society or any society of that time period. Plato and Socrates assign to women a role that is much more progressive than the role held by women in their present-day societies. The roles that were allocated to women and men reflect the predeterminations regarding gender roles present in Plato’s society. In Athenian society of the 3rd and 4th centuries BCE, women led very sheltered, confined lives. Athens is viewed as the earliest model of democracy, and yet half of its …show more content…

The Philosopher King is assumed to be a man, but aside from that, there is no hierarchy among the Guardians based on gender. Plato assigns to women a role nearly equal to that of men. In planning this integration of genders, Plato had as a model: Spartan society. In the military-oriented Spartan city-state, women were trained in physical activities alongside men, even exercising naked, as was Greek custom of the time (Maayan 2001). Plato advocated for women to be educated the same as men: “If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things” (Plato …show more content…

When discussing the work that is to be assigned to women, Plato insists that women are capable of the same tasks as men, but assumes that women will necessarily be inferior in performing them. This seems too obvious to him that it is not worthy of discussion—he makes the claim, and it is immediately agreed upon. When dissolving the family and romantic relationships, Plato indicates a prejudice stemming more from his own preferences than from the status quo of his society. Plato, in his own life, did not form deep romantic or intellectual relationship with women. His conception of amiable interpersonal relationship centers on friendships and romantic companionships between men (Taylor 6). Taking this into account, the ease with which he dismisses the importance of family and romantic pairings is clearer. He reduces sex to state-mandated mating solely for the purpose of reproduction because, taking his own life as the standard, he does not perceive it as a hardship for the men and women of his ideal

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