Royal Institute of Philosophy

Plato's "Republic" and Feminism

Author(s): Julia Annas
Source: Philosophy, Vol. 51, No. 197 (Jul., 1976), pp. 307-321
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal Institute of Philosophy
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Plato's Republic and Feminism
JULIA ANNAS

Not many philosophers have dealt seriously with the problems of women's
rights and status, and those that have, have unfortunately often been on
the wrong side.1 In fact Plato and Mill are the only great philosophers who
can plausibly be called feminists. But there has been surprisingly little
serious effort made to analyse their arguments; perhaps because it has
seemed like going over ground already won.
This paper is concerned only with Plato. I shall maintain what may
surprise some: that it is quite wrong to think of Plato as 'the first feminist'.2
His arguments are unacceptable to a feminist, and the proposals made in
Republic V are irrelevant to the contemporary debate.
The idea that Plato is a forerunner of Women's Liberation has gained
support from the fact that in Republic V Plato proposes not only that
women should share men's tasks but also that the nuclear family should
be abolished.3 This idea is put forward by some radical feminists today as an
essential part of any programme for the liberation of women. But I shall
argue that Plato's grounds for the proposal are so different from the
modern ones that he is in no sense a forerunner of them. Furthermore,
where they differ, empirical evidence suggests that it is Plato who is wrong.
Plato's proposals about women4 come at the beginning of Book V,
where Socrates is represented as having to surmount three waves of
opposition. The first wave concerns the admission of women as Guardians;
the second concerns the communal life of the Guardians; the third concerns
the practicability of the ideal state, and this leads into the discussion

1 Rousseau, Emile, ch. 5, and Schopenhauer,'On Women', in Parergaand

Paralipomena,are the most strikingexamples.
2 J. R.
Lucas, 'BecauseYou Are a Woman',Philosophy(I973). The claim that
Plato was a feminist is very common in discussions of RepublicV, and also in
recent feminist discussions. Cf. A. Rosenthal, 'Feminism Without Contra-
dictions', Monist (1973): 'The feminism of Plato is exemplaryand unparalleled
in philosophy or politicaltheory'.
3 The term 'nuclear
family'may be found dislikable,but it is useful in avoiding
the suggestion that Plato wants to abolish the family in favour of impersonal
institutions of a I984 type. He stresses that family affectionwill remain,though
spread over a wider class of people (463d-e).
4 And children,
though I shall not be considering them in this paper. In
modern discussions the question of children's rights is often raised along with
that of women's rights, but significantlyno one has ever tried to see Plato as a
precursorof these ideas.

Philosophy 51 1976 307

Julia Annas

which occupies the rest of Books V-VII. The figure of separate 'waves' is
constantly brought before us; for Plato the capacity of women to be
Guardians is a separate question from the replacement of nuclear family
life.5
Plato begins his treatment of the first problem (45I) by extending the
metaphor he has used already. Female watchdogs do just what the male
ones do, except that they are weaker, and their lives are interrupted by
giving birth. By analogy, the same is true of women; though they are
weaker than men and their lives are interrupted by childbirth, they are
otherwise the same, and so should be given the same upbringing and
tasks as men, however distasteful the sight of ugly old women exercising
in the gymnasium may be.
Now this is only metaphor-and in fact it does not pretend to be serious
argument. Plato wants to give us a picture first, perhaps so that we have a
vivid idea of what the arguments are about before they are presented,
perhaps also so that he can meet and deflect mere ridicule right at the start,
before the serious discussion. Still, the initial metaphor is important, for
it continues to influence Plato in the actual argument.
Plato now (453b-c) puts forward what he regards as a serious objection
to the idea of women being Guardians. The opponent is made to say that
it contradicts the principle on which the ideal state is constructed-namely,
that each person is to do his own work, according to his nature (453b5).
As women differ greatly in nature from men, they should surely have
different functions in the city (453bIo-i ).
Plato dismisses this objection as merely captious. Of course it is true
that different natures should do different things, but it does not follow that
men and women should do different things unless it can be shown that they
have natures that are different in the important respect of affecting their
capacity for the same pursuit. Otherwise it would be like letting bald men,
but not hairy men, be cobblers. Plato now claims that men and women
differ only in their sexual roles: men impregnate, women give birth
(454d-e). The objector fails to show that there is any capacity that is
peculiar to women, and Plato claims to show that there are no civic pursuits
which belong to a woman as such or to a man as such (this is the part of the
argument we shall come back to). Since there are no specific male or female
competences, men and women should follow the same pursuits, and
women who have natures suitable to be Guardians should therefore be
appropriately trained.

5 Platojustifiesthe abolitionof the nuclearfamilysolely on groundsof

eugenics
and of the unity of the state (see below), and there seems no reason why these
grounds should not hold even if women were not full Guardians and had a
subordinatestatus; Plato's second proposal is thus in principle independent of
his first.

308
 Plato's Republic and Feminism

This is how Plato deals with the first 'wave'. There are three important
points to be made about his argument.
i. Firstly, there is something very odd about the actual course of the
argument from 455a-d. Plato has established the undeniable point that
while women are different from men in some ways and similar in others,
discussion at that level is sterile; the interesting question is whether the un-
disputed differences matter when we decide whether women should be able
to hold certain jobs. This is the crucial point not only for Plato but for any
sensible discussion of the topic. But Plato's argument is seriously incomplete.
At 455a9-b2 he poses the question, 'Are there any occupations which
contribute towards the running of the state which only a woman can do?'
Very swiftly he claims to show that there are none. Men are better equipped
both mentally and physically (455b4-c6). So in every pursuit men can do
better than women, though it is not true that all men do better than all
women (455d3-5). Women, he says, are ridiculed when men do such
traditional feminine tasks as cooking and weaving better than they do; still,
it follows from what has been said that if men bothered to turn their
attention to these tasks they would do them better. 'The one sex is, so to
speak, far and away beaten in every field by the other' (455d2-3).
Now it is hardly a feminist argument to claim that women do not have a
special sphere because men can outdo them at absolutely everything.
What is more important in the present context, however, is that Plato
sums up his argument at 455d6-eI by saying that there is no civic pursuit
which belongs to a woman as such or to a man as such. But while he has
argued that there are no pursuits appropriate for a woman as such, because
men could do them all better, where is the argument that there are no
specifically male competences? There is not a trace of any such argument
in the text, nor of any materials which could be used for one.
This is a serious gap, both because it is the point that the objector, if he
were not being shepherded by Socrates (cf. 455a5-b2) would in fact press,
and because what Plato says about male and female capacities actually
provides material for such an objector.
Anyone acquainted with the modern literature will realize at once that
someone objecting to the idea that men and women should share all roles
is not very worried about whether there are some jobs that only women are
suited for. The reason for this is obvious enough: jobs that women usually
do are badly paid or unpaid and lack status, and men are generally not
interested in doing them. What really interests the objector is the claim
that there are some occupations in society which only men are suited for:
being doctors, lawyers, judges, taking part in politics by voting or holding
office, owning and managing property. In the Athens of Plato's day women
were not allowed to do any of these things, and the average Athenian
would no doubt have simply assumed that they could not do them (as we
can see from Aristophanes' Ecclesiazusae).

309
Julia Annas

Any feminist must take this objection seriously and meet it, simply
because it has been historically the main objection to attempts by women
to enter hitherto male professions or obtain hitherto male rights like the
vote.6 Yet Plato not only does nothing to meet this overwhelmingly
obvious objection, he even provides materials for the objector. At 455b4-c6
he distinguishes three ways in which a gifted nature differs from an
ungifted one. The gifted learn quickly, the ungifted only with difficulty.
The gifted do not have to be taught very long before they can go on to
make discoveries of their own; the ungifted need long instruction and are
hard put to it to retain what they have learnt. The gifted can put their
thoughts into action; the ungifted are clumsy. Plato then asks rhetorically,
'Do you know of any human pursuit in which men do not greatly excel
women in all these qualities?' Clearly the answer is, 'No'. But if men
always excel women in these very important respects, the objector has all
he wants: surely there are some pursuits (e.g. generalship) where these
qualities are needed in a high degree and which it is therefore not reasonable
to open to women. It is no good saying, as Plato at once does, that, 'many
women are better than many men at many things' (455d3-4). The objector
does not need to claim that all men are always better than all women in a
specific respect. If only men excel in a quality, then if efficiency is our aim7
surely that makes it reasonable to regard a pursuit that requires a high
degree of that quality as suited specially to men. The fact that women will
not invariably come bottom is neither here nor there. In Plato's fiercely
specialized state, the aim will be the maximum number of alpha per-
formances.
This is an important argument. Scientific research into sex differences
is an area of great controversy precisely because its results do have
important social consequences; if men and women did have different types
of intelligence, for example, then different types of education would
surely be appropriate. But why does Plato not even notice the gap in his
argument, or the ammunition he is handing to the opposition? Of course
he does not want to make the opponent's case seem strong. But it is
possible that he genuinely does not see the disastrous relevance of his
claims about men's superior intellectual gifts to his point about distinct
fields of activity. He may be doing here what Aristotle often criticizes
him for-taking metaphor for argument.

6 Mill in The Subjectionof Womendeals with this type of argument as an

objectionto women havingpoliticalrights. Nowadaysthe idea that women differ
intellectuallyfrom men is directedratheragainstwomen having serious careers
comparableto men's; cf. C. Hutt, Males and Females,ch. 9.
7 As it certainlyis Plato's aim. He does not use the patronizingargumentthat
on grounds of 'respect for persons' women should have equal pay and status
with men even if their contributionis recognizedto be inferior.

3Io
 Plato's Republic and Feminism

The metaphor of male and female watchdogs with which the subject
was introduced would naturally lead Plato to think predominantly of
human tasks which are analogous. And this is what we find. At 455eI,
after the argument just discussed, he mentions that women are weaker
than men at all pursuits. This suits his use of the analogy with the dogs,
for there the difference in strength between male and female was not
sufficient reason to give them different tasks. And in the whole discussion
that follows he simply shelves the question of intellectual differences between
men and women. He never seriously discusses activities where these
differences would matter and which are nevertheless to be open to women
in the ideal state. There is only one reference to women officials (46ob9-Io)
and even then they have a traditionally 'feminine' role (inspecting newborn
children). There is possibly a reference to women doctors at 454dI-3 (but
the text is very uncertain), and some women are said to be capable of being
doctors at 455e6-7. Against these two (or possibly three) meagre and
offhand references to women doing jobs requiring some intellectual
capacity, there are at least nine references8 to women fighting, serving in
the army and doing gymnastics. On this topic Plato's discussion is full and
emphatic. He is taking seriously the idea that the life of the human female
is like that of any other female animal, with reproduction making only
short breaks in physical activity otherwise like the male's. No doubt this is
because he is mainly interested in the eugenic possibilities for his 'herd'.9
The picture of the female watchdog diverts him from the problems he
faces given his beliefs about female intellectual capacities.
So Plato's argument here is not one which a feminist would find useful
or even acceptable. In any case, it has a serious gap, and it is not clear that
Plato could repair it except by abandoning his beliefs about the intellectual
inferiority of women.10
2. Secondly, the argument is not based on, and makes no reference to,
women's desires or needs. Nothing at all is said about whether women's
present roles frustrate them or whether they will lead more satisfying lives
as Guardians than as house-bound drudges.
This is rather striking, since women in fourth-century Athens led lives
that compare rather closely to the lives of women in present-day Saudi

8452a4-5, aIo-b3, b8-c2, 453a3-4, 457a6-9, 458dI-2, 466c6-dI, 467aI-2,

468d7-eI.
9 The word is used literally at 459eI, e3, and (possibly) as a metaphor at
45Ic7-8.
10It is, however, true that Plato's argumentbreakssome ground at least, in
makingit possible to considerwomen as individualsand not as a class with fixed
capacities; at 455e-456a, after the argumentjust considered, women are com-
paredwith otherwomen in variousways, not with men. Hence Plato has removed
objections to considering his proposals at all on the ground that women as a
class are incompetent.

3"
Julia Annas

Arabia. The place of women in Athenian life is summed up forcibly in the

notorious statement, 'We have courtesans for our pleasure, concubines
for the requirements of the body, and wives to bear us lawful children
and look after the home faithfully'. (Pseudo-Demosthenes, Against
Neaera, 122). The contrast between this and the life of the Guardians is so
striking that one would have thought some comparison inevitable. Yet
Plato shows no interest in this side of the picture. Later on in Book V
(465b12-c7) he talks about the liberating effect of communal life in freeing
people from the struggle to make ends meet and the need to hand one's
money over to women and slaves to take care of it. Here the woman's
position in the household is presented as something that the man is to be
liberated from. There is nothing about the effect on her of communal
living.
Of course Plato is not bound to be interested in the psychology of
women, but his complete lack of interest underlines the fact that his
argument does not recommend changing the present state of affairs on the
ground that women suffer from being denied opportunities that are open
to men.
His argument has quite different grounds, in fact. The state benefits
from having the best possible citizens, and if half the citizens sit at home
doing trivial jobs then usable talent is being wasted. Here Mrs Huby gets
the point exactly right: 'There was nothing worth while for a woman to
do at home; she should therefore share in man's work outside the home'
(Plato and Modern Morality, p. 23). Plato's sole ground for his proposals
is their usefulness to the state; the point is repeated several times.11
Of course there is nothing non-feminist about this argument.12 But
Plato's argument gains rather different significance from the fact that this
is his only ground. His argument is authoritarian in spirit rather than
liberal; if a woman did not want to be a Guardian, Plato would surely be
committed to compelling her to serve the state. Though this question
never arises in the Republic, at Laws 780a-c the Athenian says openly that

11456c4-9: the question is, are the proposalsbest, beltista(Jowett translates

this and similar phrases by 'most beneficial'). At 457a3-4 the proposals are
'best for the city', aristonpolei. At 457b -2 women'snakednessin the gymnasium
will be 'for the sake of what is best', tou beltistouheneka,and people who find it
ludicrous will be foolish, because 'what is useful (5phelimon)is fair and what is
harmful (blaberon)is ugly', and the proposals are useful as well as possible
(cI-2). Cf. 452d3-e2, where the supposed analogy of men exercising naked is
justified in terms of benefit.
12 It is found even in Firestone (The Dialectic of Sex, pp. 206-210), though
her main argumentis not utilitarian.Interestingly,it is not the main argument
in the utilitarianMill, for whom the main objectionto sexual inequality is the
curtailmentof the freedom, and hence the happiness, of women. Mill causes
confusion, however, by also including utilitarianarguments.

312
 Plato's Republic and Feminism

women are to be compelled to attend the communal meals (all that is left
of the communal life of the Republic), because most women will be shy
and used to seclusion and so will not want to take part. This is rather far
from modern liberal arguments that women should have equal opportunities
with men because otherwise they lead stunted and unhappy lives and lack
the means for self-development.
This point may have been missed because at 456cI-2 Plato says that the
present set-up of society is 'contrary to nature' (para phusin). We are not,
however, entitled to claim that for Plato confinement to the home thwarts
the nature of women. What is 'contrary to nature' surely has to be under-
stood as the opposite of what has just been said to be 'according to nature'
(kata phusin, 456cI), and this is the principle that similar natures should
follow similar pursuits. The present set-up is contrary to nature only in the
sense that women do not in fact do jobs that they are capable of doing.
There is no suggestion in the present passage that by 'contrary to nature'
Plato means anything stronger, such as for example that women's present
roles are imposed on them in a way which deforms their lives. (This is not
a point peculiar to the discussion of women. The arguments in Book II
that each person should have one occupation make no appeal to people's
happiness or satisfaction in doing only one thing. Cf. 370b-c, 374b-d.)
In the Laws also (8o5a-b) Plato says that it is stupid not to train and bring
up boys and girls in the same way to have the same pursuits and purposes,
and adds that nearly every state is half a state as things are, whereas it
could double its resources (cf. 8o6c). For Plato the reason why housewifery
is not a real occupation is that it makes no irreplaceable contribution to
the state, and absorbs time and energy that could be put to publicly
beneficial use. He is completely unconcerned with the sort of objection
which is nowadays familiar, namely that housewifery is incapable of
providing an intelligent woman with a satisfying life, and leads to boredom,
neurosis and misery.13
3. The third point leads on naturally from the second, since it is also a
consequence of the fact that Plato justifies his proposals solely in terms of
benefit to the state. The proposals for women are not a matter of their
rights. There is nothing in RepublicV that one could apply to the question
of women's rights; the matter is simply not raised.
Of course Plato nowhere discusses men's rights either, and notoriously
has no word for 'rights', any more than he has for 'duty' or 'obligation'.
But the point is not lost if we abandon talk of rights and merely notice
instead that Plato nowhere says that his proposals for women are just.
13 Of course there are other
objections to housewifery as an occupation for
women, e.g. that it is hard, unpleasantand unpaid, and these may well be more
importantfrom the viewpoint of practicalreforms, but the charge that it does
not satisfy a woman's capacities is the most relevant to discussion of Plato's
argument.

313
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Julia Annas

It is remarkable in a work which makes proposals about women as radical

as the Republic's,and which has as much to say about justice as the Republic
has, that inequality of the sexes is not presented as an injustice, and that
the proposals to treat the sexes equally are not presented as measures
which will make the state more just than its rivals. Yet the ideal state is
just for reasons, explained in Books II-IV, which have nothing to do with
the position of women in it. Nothing is said about any connection between
the decline to the various forms of unjust state and the position of women
in them.l4
In fact it is rather unclear how the proposals of Book V relate to justice
at all, whether in the state or in the soul. If women are to be Guardians,
they must have just souls. We know from Book IV that the just soul has
rightly organized parts-the logistikon or rational element, epithumetikon
or desiring element, and thumoeides,the part usually called 'spirit' or the
like. If the Guardian women are just, presumably they have these parts
of soul. But do women's souls have a thumoeidic part? As it is introduced
in Book IV, thumoeidesappears to be a capacity for aggressive and violent
behaviour, visible even in animals, but, one would have thought, notably
lacking in fourth-century Athenian women. It is true that thumoeidesis not
limited to unthinking aggression, but even the more developed forms of
behaviour that Plato regards as typically thumoeidic display what Gosling15
calls 'admiration for manliness', what we might call machismo.Unless the
account of the just soul is to be done all over again for women Guardians
to take account of female psychology, Plato must assume that women have
the same aggressive tendencies as men. And in Book V he does make this
assumption, and says that some women at any rate will be of the pre-
dominantly thumoeidic type (456aI-5). But this seems to conflict with his
statements elsewhere which say or imply that women's psychology differs
from men's precisely in that they lack the thumoeidic qualities of courage
and 'guts'; by contrast with men they are weak, devious and cowardly.16
14However,the equalandfreeassociationof menandwomenappearsasoneof the
badeffects of the completelydemocraticstate (563b7-9). This is discussedbelow.
15Plato, ch.
3, 'Admiration for Manliness'. As the title suggests, Gosling
conducts the discussion wholly in terms of male ideals, and does not remark on
any difficulty arising from the fact that half the Guardians will be women.
16 Laws 8o2e declares that pride and courage are characteristic of men (and
should be expressed in their music) whereas what is characteristic of women is
restraint and modesty. Plato seems to endorse in the Meno the idea that the scope
of men's and women's virtue is different-that of a man is to manage his own and
the city's affairs capably, that of a woman is to be a good and thrifty housewife
and to obey her husband (7Ie, 73a). This makes it hard to see how women can
possess the thumoeidic part of the soul necessary for the complete justice of a
Guardian. The Laws concludes, consistently, that a woman has less potentiality
for virtue than a man (78Ib2-4): Plato says that it is women's weakness and
timidity that make them sly and devious.

3I4
 Plato's Republic and Feminism

I have argued so far that for Plato his proposals about women are
justified entirely by the resulting benefit to the state and not at all by
women's needs or rights. It is important that the state in question is the
ideal state. As far as I can see, there is nothing in RepublicV which would
commit Plato to the view that it was unjust for fourth-century Athenian
women to be treated as they were. The proposals for women arise when
the just constitution of the ideal state has been determined. There seems
no reason why analogous proposals should be made in an unreformed
state. Why should women be able to do men's jobs where this will merely
have the result that instead of operating in a private sphere in the home,
they will be operating in a private sphere at work? Plato would have no
grounds for arguing that it would be best and useful for the state for this
to happen.
Is this an ungenerous way to take the spirit of Plato's proposals? We
should notice that even in the ideal state Plato limits his proposals for
women to the Guardian class. There is nothing to suggest that the worker
class do not live like fourth-century Greeks, with the women at home
doing the cooking and weaving. This seems to show that whether women
should do men's jobs depends, for Plato, on the nature of the jobs. The
ideal state might contain many discontented potters' wives wanting to be
potters; but presumably the Guardians (male and female) would only tell
them to stay at home and learn sophrosunein carrying out their appointed
tasks.
If Plato's argument applies only to the performance of tasks which
contribute towards the public good in the direct way that the Guardians'
tasks do, it is clearly irrelevant to modern arguments for equality of
opportunity. No modern feminist would argue that women should be able
to do men's jobs when this will result in greater direct benefit to the state,
and otherwise stay at home. The moment it could be shown that the state
did not need the extra women public servants, there would be no grounds
for letting them have the jobs.
It would in fact be surprising if Plato's argument were relevant to
women's rights, because it is a purely utilitarian argument. This is,
however, precarious ground for a feminist, for once more efficient means
to the desired end are found, women can at once be thrust back into the
home. Mill begins The Subjectionof Womenwith the statement that 'the legal
subordination of one sex to the other is wrong in itself'. Plato is not com-
mitted to this by the Republic, and I see no reason whatsoever to believe
that he thought that it was true. He thinks only that the present situation
is wasteful and inefficient, and, under ideal conditions, should be changed.
This makes it easier to understand what seemed puzzling earlier, namely
that Plato should combine a belief that the jobs of (Guardian) men should
be open to women with a belief that women are physically and mentally
inferior to men. It has always been difficult for those who see Plato as a

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Julia Annas

feminist to understand why he stresses so much the comparative feebleness

of women's contribution, for it is not usual to combine proposals like
Plato's with extreme contempt for women. But on a purely utilitarian
argument, since women represent a huge pool of untapped resources, it
does not matter in the least if their contribution is not as good as that of
men; and that is just what Plato seems to think.
Throughout Plato's works there are scattered examples of conventional
contempt for women. At Cratylus 392bi-dIo, for example, we are told
that the Trojan men called Hector's son Astyanax and the Trojan women
called him Scamandrius, and that this means that the former is the right
name, as men are more intelligent than women. Of course nothing can be
built on this kind of remark, and it would be unprofitable as well as depres-
sing to comb Plato's works for such passages. Nevertheless they are
significant in that taken together they build up a consistent tone which is
hard to reconcile with an attitude that could be called feminist. Even in
Book V itself Plato remarks that the practice of despoiling the dead shows a
'small and womanish mind' (469d7)-this in a context where half of the
army doing the killing and despoiling are women. This might be put down
to carelessness were it not for the Timaeus, where Plato not only says
(42e), 'Human nature being twofold, the better sort was that which
should thereafter be called man', but says twice (42b3-c4, 90e6-9ia4) that
evil and cowardly men are reborn as women, that being the first step
downwards to rebirth as animals. There could hardly be a more open
declaration that women are inferior to men. If the Timaeus was written at
roughly the same time as the Republic, this embarrasses those who want to
see Plato in the Republic as a feminist. But if what I have argued is right,
then the Timaeusis quite compatible with the Republic.Even if women are
inferior to men, it will still be of advantage to the state to have women do
what men do if it is of public benefit. The argument in the Republic does
not need, or claim, more than this.
There is one striking and revealing passage which shows that even in
the Republic Plato holds the view of women's inferiority which has its
uglier expression in the Timaeus. At 563b7-9 equality (isonomia) and
freedom between men and women turns up as one of the deplorable
corruptions of the democratic state. Now what is wrong with the demo-
cratic state, in Plato's view, is that unequals are treated equally-young
and old, for example, and slave and free. The only possible inference is
that Plato himself holds that women are naturally inferior to men,17 and
that any actual state where they are on terms of equality has corrupted the
natural hierarchy. It is true that in his hostile portrait of the democratic
state Plato carries over some details from contemporary Athens (for
example, the fact that slaves cannot be distinguished at sight from free
17Cf. Laws 917a4-6, where this is clearlybrought out.

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 Plato's Republic and Feminism

men by their clothes) and so not all features of his description embody
serious theses. But even at his most careless Plato could hardly have
thought of fourth-century Athens as an example of a place where men and
women were on terms of freedom and equality. The passage must, then,
be taken as a deliberate and important statement of what Plato believes,
and it shows conclusively that the Republic does not differ on this point
from the Timaeus. Even in the Republic, Plato never advocates the view
that men and women are equal.
It comes as no surprise, then, that when Plato stops believing that the
ideal state can be realized, he also stops thinking that women should do
the same jobs as men, even in a greatly improved state. In the Laws he has
abandoned the idea that men and women might be totally devoted to the
state as the Guardians were. And the Republic's radical proposals about
women lapse. Although women are still educated and forced into public
to some extent, this is merely so that they can be controlled, since their
potential for virtue is less than men's and they would get up to mischief
(78od9-78Ib6). They are still to learn how to fight, but only so as to defend
their homes and children in the last resort (804-806, 813e-814c). The only
office they hold seems to be that of organizing a kind of women's moral
vigilante group. Otherwise they are left in the position of fourth-century
Greek women. They take no part in any political process, they are unable
to own or inherit property in their own right, and they are perpetual legal
minors always under the authority of male relatives or guardians. Women
are married off by their fathers or brothers, and an heiress passes with the
property to the nearest male relative,l8 as was the normal Greek practice
of the time.19
Plato's argument that women should be Guardians thus has three
crucial defects: it is not valid against an anti-feminist, it is irrelevant to
facts about women's desires, and it is irrelevant to the injustice of sexual
inequality.
Plato's proposal to abolish nuclear family life has also led to his being
associated with radical feminists who claim that women can only be
liberated from confining sexual roles by providing an alternative to the
nuclear family.20 Here again, however, we should look carefully at what
Plato actually says.
18 A woman can choose her own husband, if she is an heiress, only in the
extremely unlikely situation of there being absolutely no suitable male relative
available;and even then her choice is to be in consultationwith her guardians.
19Even so, a limited amount of gymnasticactivity and fightingis left open for
women in the Laws; this shows how little this has to do with real liberationof
women from traditionalroles, in spite of the fuss made over it in the Republic.
20At this point I distinguish 'radical feminists' from 'feminists', because
clearly one can be a feminist without believing that the nuclear family must be
abolished.

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He attacks the second 'wave' with the proposal (457cIo-dI) that 'all the
women should be in common'. (It is worth noticing that he describes this
always from the male point of view. He talks of the koinonia of women and
children, koinonia being a word used in Attic legal documents to mean
joint ownership of property, and refers to the 'correct acquisition and use'
of women and children.21) Socrates says that he had supposed the useful-
ness of the system to be obvious, so that he would only have to show its
possibility, but he is made to describe both. Here again we find that
neither justice nor people's actual desires enter in; it is the usefulness to
the state alone22 which is in question to justify the measures.
After describing communal life Socrates starts to say why this is the
best possible system. He has already pointed out its eugenic advantages.
But these are subservient to the main justification, which is given at 462-466.
The greatest good for a state is unity; the greatest evil, disunity, which
leads to disruption and instability. He undertakes to show that the system
of communal living is the best possible one because it produces the highest
degree of unity in a state. A Guardian will regard all his contemporaries as
brothers and sisters and have filial feelings to all those of an age to be his
or her parents. The Guardians will not be tied to houses and families;
all their emotional energy will be released for service to the state, and will
not be wasted in quarrels over individual concerns. Plato writes at length
and eloquently on the superiority of the state which is unitary in this way,
so that it can be compared to a body which feels pain as a whole when one
part of it is damaged. At the end of the passage he says that in view of all that
he has described the life of the Guardians is 'nobler and better' than that
of an Olympic victor.
Plato is thus miles away from modern preoccupation with the abolition
of the nuclear family as a means to personal liberation and a prerequisite
for the achievement of a more satisfying personal life. Plato is uninterested
in the question of whether the life of an individual is stunted by the

21 I owe the point about koinoniato S. Pomeroy, 'Feminism in Book V of

Plato's Republic',Apeiron (I974). Pomeroy holds the implausible view that
because Plato uses of the male Guardians' relation to the female Guardians
languagewhich can be used of property-owning,it is his consideredconclusion
that the female Guardiansare simply the property of the males.
22
457d6-9: Socratesthinks it obvious that abolition of the nuclear family is
useful (6phelinon) and a very great good (megistonagathon).Its justificationis
characterizedas proof that it is not only possible but useful (ophelimon)at d4-5,
e3-4. At 458b5-6 it is said that it would be the greatestpossible benefit to the
city and to the Guardians(sumphorotat'an eie prachthentatei te polei kai tois
phulaxin). At 46Ie7 the koinonia of women and children is said to be best
(beltiste).At 462a2-7 Socrates says that we must see whether or not it fits the
greatestgood of a city (i.e. unity); at 464b5-6 it is said to be the cause (aitia) of
this.

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 Plato's Republic and Feminism

nuclear family. His obsession with unity and stability in a state points in
the opposite direction from increasing free self-realization and self-
direction on the part of the individual.
It is interesting to compare Plato here with the modern radical feminist
Shulamith Firestone in her book The Dialectic of Sex. Firestone is just as
radical as Plato about abolishing the nuclear family in favour of communal
living, and just as visionary about the results. Abolishing the nuclear
family, according to her, would 'spread family emotions over the whole
society... if no one had exclusive relationships with children, then...
the natural interest in children would be diffused over all children rather
than narrowly concentrated on one's own' (p. I96 n. 2). But for Firestone
this should be done because of the psychological and sexual liberation of
people which according to her would result. Until the nuclear family is
replaced, she argues, people will be trapped in institutions which are 'psycho-
logically destructive', and their sexuality will be frustrated and unfulfilled.23
Plato, on the other hand, does not regard the family as psychologically
destructive, or rather it does not enter his account of people's psychology
at all. As for sexuality, Plato is so far from wanting to liberate it that the
communal life of the Guardians is made the basis of a very strict regulation
of sex life. No importance at all is given to individuals' choices; eugenic
considerations are paramount. The only value Plato can see in sexual
desire is the way it can be used to make sexual gratification a kind of bribe
for doing well in battle. But even here the advantage is that a brave man
will have many children and thus improve the state's stock. No value is
attributed to satisfying sexual desire itself (468c5-6; 46ob).
Thus for Plato the abolition of the nuclear family is meant to lead, not
to greater individual personal and sexual fulfilment, but rather to a deeper
sinking of the individual self in the concerns of the city. It is 'privatization'
(idiosis) of feelings of pleasure and pain (462b8) that tends to break up a
state and should be fought against. What is wrong with the nuclear family
is not that it represses the individual but that it does so in the interests of
too narrow an ideal, and Plato wants to abolish it in the interests of an
authoritarian state. Modern radical feminists want to abolish it in the
interests of greater self-realization on the part of individuals.
Interestingly, history seems to indicate that here it is Plato who is wrong.
Authoritarian states have not in fact tried to abolish the nuclear family to
increase loyalty to the state. If anything it is the other way round; devotion
to the state is fostered not by breaking family ties but rather by strengthen-
ing them. The growth of Stalinism in Russia was marked by the imposition

23
Op. cit., pp. 51-54, ch. 3 part I, 183-I86, 187-195, 210-224. This is a
common theme in women's liberation literature. Cf. Limpus, 'Liberation of
Women, Sexual Politics and the Family' (New England Free Press), Millett,
Sexual Politics, especially pp. 61-62, 120- 127.

3I9
Julia Annas

of repressive measures designed to strengthen the nuclear family, undoing

the measures passed after the Revolution, which were designed to weaken
it. The later laws, which made divorce difficult and raised the status and
esteem of marriage and child-bearing, were not relaxed until de-Stalin-
ization in the fifties.24 Nazi Germany from the very first linked the cult of
the state with emphasis on the traditional family. Goebbels put it very
clearly: 'When we eliminate women from public life, it is ... because we
want to give them back their essential honour ... The outstanding and
highest calling of woman is always that of wife and mother. . . ' The
Nazis passed several laws designed specifically to strengthen the family
as an institution.25 That two such different authoritarian states should
strengthen the nuclear family in this way can hardly be a coincidence.
Thus not only are Plato's intentions opposite to those of modern radical
feminists, but his analysis comes off worse than theirs in the face of
empirical findings.
We can now see how wrong is the sort of interpretation of Plato to be
found in Crossman's Plato Today (which I choose as representative of
many interpretations of Republic V): 'The abolition of marriage was a
tremendous assertion of the rights of woman' (p. i22); 'Plato was a
feminist not only in the sense that he wanted to free the best women from
the bondage of the family; he also wanted to free them from the ambitions
which that bondage imposed on them' (p. I23); 'Plato faces us with the
full problem of "feminism"' (p. I25).
Crossman not only accepts the familiar picture but also accepts the
usual objection to it, namely that it flies in the face of human nature. Most
people, he claims, need lasting sexual unions and family life, and it is no
good for a husband and wife to try to live on terms of equality, because
the husband's work will inevitably be better than the wife's and all that
will result is an unequal rivalry. 'The failure of many modern marriages
must be attributed to Platonic ideals' (p. I25).
If what I have argued is right, we shall have to look elsewhere for the
cause of the failure of many modern marriages. Plato is not interested in
the rights of women, nor in freeing women (or men) from the bonds of the
family. What he is passionately interested in is the prospect of a unified
and stable state in which some at least of the citizens work solely for the
state's good. The proposals about women and the family are means to that
24
Millett, op. cit., pp. 168-176, Firestone, pp. 198-199, Rowbotham, Women,
Resistance and Revolution, ch. 6, and her introduction to Alexandra Kollontai's
pamphlet 'Women Workers Struggle for Their Rights' (Falling Wall Press);
W. Reich, The Sexual Revolution, part 2.
25
Millett, op. cit., pp. 157-168, where solid facts are cited which refute the
silly attempt by A. Stassinopoulos (The Female Woman, pp. 76-78) to show that
the Nazis were ideologically against the family on the ground that one Nazi
sociologist wanted to replace family life with separate male communes.

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end, and as the vision of that end fades, so does Plato's interest in those
means. Plato the feminist is a myth.
Mill begins The Subjection of Women with the statement that the
subordination of one sex to the other is wrong in itself. It seems to me that
to be a feminist one has to begin from this point. But it is a point that
Plato never reaches. And it is not surprising that he never reaches it, for
he is not going in that direction at all.26

St Hugh's College, Oxford

26 I am
gratefulto James Dybikowskifor very helpful comments on an earlier
draft.He will still think that I am too hard on Plato. I am also gratefulto Graeme
Segal for improvementsin the present version.

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