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Plato on Women
Author(s): Christine Garside Allen
Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2/3 (1975), pp. 131-138
Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc.
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PLATO ON WOMEN

Christine Garside Allen

One is struck at first glance by an apparent inconsistency in Plato’s views on

women. On the one hand, the Republic and the Laws present a vision of equality
between the sexes while the Timaeus seems to indicate an essential inferiority of
women. This surface inconsistency poses problems both for Plato scholars and
for women who seek in Plato some historical justification for equalizing education,
for communal care of children, and for women’s capacity for leadership. The
solution to the problem has frequently been to select one of the alternatives as
the real Plato and to reject the other as unimportant. Most commonly, Plato
scholars deemphasizethe significance of the vision of equality of the sexes by
claiming either that Plato was only discussing a utopian vision of society and

that he had no illusions about its practical implementation, or that he was not

at all serious about it, even as an ideal. This latter view is remarkably expressed
by the eminent Plato expert I. M. Crombie. “. . . [Plato’s discussion of the equal-
ity of the sexes] should be read by connoisseurs of a priori absurdity... . For
various unplausible reasons Socrates suggests that these proposals will give unity
and cohesion to the community. The most charitable comment to make on this
passage is to suggest that Plato’s purpose is to pull the legs of those who attach
undue value to family ties.”!

On the contrary, a serious treatment of Plato’s concern for radicalizing the

educational opportunities for women is commonly found in contemporary wom-
en’s liberation literature. Coupled with this emphasis, however, is an attitude of
embarrassment toward a passage from the Timaeus which concerns the creation
of the world and the process of rebirth of souls. “Of the men who came into the
world, those who were cowards or led unrighteous lives may with reason be sup-
posed to have changed into the nature of women in the second generation.”2
This uneasiness is generally removed by claiming that Plato did not seriously be-
lieve in the myths he wrote. This solution, however, is not correct, as I hope to
show.

The attempt to understand Plato’s views on women is complicated even more

by the actual role women play in the dialogues themselves. For the most part
they are absent. In the Symposium, Diotima emerges as Socrates’ teacher, and

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132 Plato on Women

she may very well have been modeled on a living woman philosopher.> In gener-
al, however, the speakers in Plato’s dialogues are male.4

In the following paragraphs I will develop the skeleton of an argument to show

that Plato was thoroughly consistent in his theories on women, that this consis-
tency follows from a careful understanding of his fundamental metaphysical
framework, his doctrine of the preexistence of the soul, of the purpose of life,
and the goals of education. Furthermore, to understand Plato on this issue de-
mands a study of the different kinds of myths he uses in his dialogues, and the
subsequent weight each should be given in trying to determine what he really
thought about women.

In the Republic, Socrates allegorically describes the relationship between act-

ing wisely and contemplating the good.
My dream as it appears to me is that in the region of the known the last thing to
be seen and
hardly seen is the idea of good, and that when seen it must needs point us to the
conclusion
that this is indeed the case for all things of all that is right and beautiful,
giving birth in the
visible world to light, and the author of light and itself in the intelligible
world being the

authentic source of truth and reason, and that anyone who is to act wisely in
private or pub-
lic must have caught sight of this.5

The dialogue from this point goes into some detail about the best way to educate
people so that they can reach this vision of the good. The crucial phrase is: any-
one who is to act wisely in private or public must have caught sight of this. One
could say that part of the purpose of life is to pass upward along the divided line
of the Republic, or the ladder of love of the Symposium. “And if, my dear Socra-
tes, Diotima went on, man’s life is ever worth the living, it is when he has
attained
this vision of the very soul of beauty.”® By this Plato does not mean that the
goal of life is to end in mystical contemplation, but that there is a crucial
relation-
ship between the vision of the good and one’s behavior in society. In the end, the
lover of wisdom should return to the world to aid others in their struggle to know
the truth. There is in Plato a dynamic relationship between contemplation and
action, between knowledge of the world of forms and praxis. “Now, by far the
most important kind of wisdom, she went on, is that which governs the ordering
of society, and which goes by the name of justice and moderation.””7

It is significant that in the Republic and in the Laws, where we find the most
detailed account of practical problems and theories of education, we also find a
serious discussion of immortality. In the Myth of Er at the end of the Republic,
Plato mentions the judgment that a soul will receive after death, and in the Laws
he discusses the existence of the soul before birth. “Soul, my friend, soul is that
of whose nature and potency all but the few would seem to know nothing; in this
general ignorance of it they know not in particular of its origin, how it is among
the primal things, elder-born than all bodies and prime source of all their changes
and transformations.”® In this short paper it is impossible to consider the argu-
ments for immortality presented in the Phaedo. However, even if one adopts the
conservative interpretation put forth by A. E. Taylor that for Plato “the mere

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Christine Garside Allen 133

admission that the hope of immortality is not irrational has a profound signifi-
cance for the conduct of life,”? my claim that there is an underlying consistency
to Plato’s theory of woman stands.

The thesis of immortality opens two areas of concern: the first involves pre-
existence of the soul, and the second concerns the life of the soul after the death
of the body. In the Phaedrus we learn that the soul is immortal, that it had a
vision of the divine, that if it is not strong enough it goes through a process of
rebirth, and that in this process during the first birth it takes on the body of a
man.!0 In the Myth of Er we learn that the soul faces a judgment after death.!1
While there is some equivocation about whether the state is imposed on the soul
from without,!2 Plato repeats in several different myths that he believes in cycles
of rebirth and that the kind of person who is born has a direct relation to the
state of the soul before the birth.13 In the Phaedrus, Plato describes the process
by which the soul falls back to earth away from the vision of truth because it has
become “burdened with a load of forgetfulness and wrongdoing.”!4 The soul
then enters into a series of incarnations, ranging from philosopher, ruler,
business-
man, athlete, priest, poet, farmer, Sophist, to tyrant, in descending order of
value.

In the Phaedrus, the differentiation between men and women is not mentioned.
In the Timaeus, however, where there is sexual discrimination, Plato includes it
at the end of the dialogue, almost as an afterthought, as a discussion of the
gener-
ation of animals.!5 In this context, women are second-generation men who were
cowardly or immoral in their first incarnation, birds are innocent light-minded
men, wild animals are men who followed the lower parts of their nature, etc.

What then is the place of these myths of creation in Plato’s philosophy? To

answer this question, I would like to use a distinction developed by Paul Fried-
lander between three different levels and uses of myth in the dialogues. On the
first level, the myth is prereflective, plays a minor part in the dialogue, and is
most
patently false. On the second level, the myth follows after dialectics, it “carries
forward the lines of argument set by the Logos,” and while there is still a degree
of uncertainty about its absolute truth, its purpose is to direct the will to
higher
things. On the third level, the myth fills the center of the dialogue, it creates a
new kind of truth, and in the dialogue Socrates becomes the propounder of the
myth instead of a mere listener or reporter. 6 If Friedlander is correct, as I be-
lieve he is, then, in trying to understand Plato’s views on women, it is crucial to
evaluate each myth separately as well as to place each myth carefully in relation
to the dialectical and discursive sections of his writings. Some examples will
draw this complexity out.

The most obvious case of Plato’s using myth on the first level is found in the
beginning of the Symposium where several people are giving their views on the
nature and origin of love. When Aristophanes recounts his theory that there
were three kinds of beings—namely, male-male, male-female, and female-female—
that each one was split in two by Zeus, and that love consists in each person’s
finding his or her missing partner, it is obvious that Plato is making fun of this

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134 Plato on Women

myth. It is prereflective and has not been studied dialectically.17

After Socrates has listened to the various views of love, he enters into a dis-
cursive argument, drawing certain things from what preceded, then forms his
own conclusions about love. Next, he introduces a new myth, the ladder of love,
which he claims to have learned from Diotima. This myth would be an example
of the second level: it follows dialectics, gives the points of Socrates’ argument
poetic force, and urges the listeners to a higher kind of moral life. Two other
examples of this second level are the discussion of transmigration at the end of
the Meno and the myth of Er at the end of the Republic.

The primary example of the third level of myth is found in the Phaedrus, al-
though Friedlander includes the Timaeus as intermediate between the second and
third levels. “The achievement of the myth is that it renders intelligible the mys-
terious aspects of life.”18 Here Plato tries to explain in some poetic detail the
essential belief he had that souls preexist and continue to exist, that their state
of existence on earth has some relation to their moral state, that the purpose of
life on earth is to struggle to become as wise as possible, that the purpose of
edu-
cation is to help that struggle to be fruitful, and that all life is called to this
same
end.

Now in all these incarnations he who lives righteously has a better lot for his
portion, and he
who lives unrighteously a worse.

Every human soul has, by reason of her nature had contemplation of true being; else
would
she never have entered into this human creature.
Therefore is it meet and right that the soul of the philosopher alone should
recover her
wings.19

Many Plato scholars attempt to deemphasize the myths. In so doing they ap-
peal to a qualification Plato introduced at the second level, namely that the de-
tails of the myth are not to be taken seriously. An example of this is the follow-
ing statement by Crombie: “The Phaedrus contains a good deal of high religious
language, and we have seen that it is possible to rationalize the religious content
out of it.”29 However, a certain confusion follows from this approach to the
myths: it may be possible to disregard some aspects of them, but it is impossible
to ignore their recurring themes of immortality, reincarnation, and appeal to a
higher moral life. Therefore, though Plato may not have regarded it as certain
that women descended from men who were either immoral or cowardly, it is
clear that he believed women were an inferior kind of incarnation. This inferior-
ity is the crucial factor and I now want to focus on it in relation to the
discursive
approach to the equality of the sexes taken in the Republic and the Laws.

Certainly the most well-known principle of Plato on this topic is that women
and men must receive the same education.
If, then, we are to use the women for the same things as the men, we must also
teach them
the same things.
The girls must be trained exactly like the boys.22

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Christine Garside Allen 135

Plato develops two separate arguments to support this claim. The first is based
on metaphysical and the second on pragmatic considerations.

The metaphysical argument depends on the premise that a person has an essen-
tial nature. Specifically, the original or essential nature of both men and women
is the particular soul they possess. Plato’s example is that bald-headed and long-
haired men do not have different natures, whereas guardians and workers do.
Consequently, ‘For the production of a female guardian, then, our education
will not be one thing for men and another for women, especially since the nature
we hand over to it is the same.”23 Differences in bodies do not indicate differ-
ences in nature for Plato. The soul has a separate and distinct identity.24 The
female body differs primarily in its role in reproduction. In the Timaeus we find:
“And we may liken the receiving principle to a mother, and the source or spring
toa father.”25 This relationship of the female with matter and the male with
form is brought into discussion in the Republic: “If it appears that they differ
only in this respect that the female bears and the male begets, we shall say that
no proof has yet been produced that the woman differs from the man for our
purposes, but we shall continue to think that our guardians and their wives ought
to follow the same pursuits.2© The consequences of this metaphysical argument
are that women and men should be given the same opportunity to achieve the
vision of the good and to be members of the guardian class. It is significant that
Aristotle, who drops Plato’s concept of a soul which can exist separate from the
body, also drops the notion that women can be wise. Without the metaphysical
justification for an equality separate from bodily existence, Aristotle locks wom-
en into an essential inferiority and an essential identification with matter.27

The pragmatic argument that Plato uses to justify equal education for women
and men is developed throughout both the Republic and the Laws. It includes
the further factor of communal living for both the women and the children of
the guardian class. Positively, Plato says: “The institution we proposed is not
only possible, but best for the state.”28 Negatively, he claims that it weakens
the state not to educate women. “Woman-—left without chastening restraint—is
not, as you might fancy, merely half the problem; nay, she is a two-fold and more
than a two-fold problem, in proportion as her native disposition is inferior to
man’s.”29 The state is weakened physically by the lack of training of women for
the warrior class,3° and it is weakened morally by lack of training of women for
the guardian class, “The very half of the race which is generally predisposed by
its weakness to undue secrecy and craft—the female sex— has been left to its dis-
orders by the mistaken concession of the legislator.3! Plato often refers to the
actual weakness of the woman in comparison to the man:

The natural capacities are distributed alike among both creatures, and women
naturally share
in all pursuits and men in all—yet for all the woman is weaker than the man.

The women and men, then have the same nature in respect to the guardianships of the
state,
save in so far as the one is the weaker, the other stronger.

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136 Plato on Women

The view that woman is weaker than man, that she is prone to secrecy and
craft, that she is in need of chastening restraint to a greater degree than man is
consistent with the mythical treatment of her creation in the Timaeus. It is sig-
nificant as well that, as A. E. Taylor points out, the Republic and the Timaeus
were being written at the same time in Plato’s life. “The Timaeus unmistakenly
announces itself as in a way a continuation of the Republic.”33 In actual fact,
for Plato, women were an inferior incarnation. But the additional fact that all
persons were alike because they all had a soul that existed separately from the
body allowed him to claim that all persons should be given equal opportunities
to become educated. One could say then that the details of the myths of creation
were unimportant in respect to the exact reason why a person may be born asa
woman, but the spirit of the myth was consistently carried through in Plato’s
other works. Specifically, women were weaker and inferior kinds of beings, just
as workers were inferior to soldiers, and soldiers to guardians. The interesting
question of how Plato saw the relationship between women guardians and male
workers is hinted at in the Republic where he states that a female doctor and a
male doctor have the same natures, whereas a male doctor and a male carpenter
have different natures.34 It is likely, therefore, that the weaker character of
women remained class-inclusive so that women guardians would be considered
to bea higher kind of existence than male soldiers.

The two kinds of arguments that Plato uses for equal education are both valid
in the context of his metaphysics and politics. In the first place, if the goal of
life is to become reunited for eternity with the forms, it is desirable for a woman
to do so if she isa member of the guardian class, although it is harder because of
her weakness. This argument from metaphysics is further supported by the prag-
matic argument that the best way to help people to this final end is to create a
society that in its entirety tends toward harmony, justice, and wisdom. The edu-
cation of women is crucial for the women themselves, for the men who are in
constant relation with the women,?> and for the children who are born from
their unions.

At this point, one may ask how Plato’s reflections on male homosexuality re-
late to his views on women. It is not surprising, with the teleological evaluation
of human nature found in the dialogues, that Plato would prefer relationships
which took place between stronger and more perfect people. The dialogues them-
selves are an example of the interchange desired between philosophers. Women,
for the most part, were not included in philosophical discussions with the excep-
tion perhaps of Sappho and Diotima. If one accepts the thesis that Socrates and
the Athenian propound Plato’s views on homosexuality, then it becomes clear
that his main concern is to elevate love above the sexual level rather than to com-
pare male homosexual love with heterosexual love. This is seen in the Symposium
where Socrates continuously refuses Alcibiades’ sexual advances.2® In the Laws,
Book I, we find: “the crime of male with male, or female with female, is an out-
rage on nature and a capital surrender to the lust of pleasure.” This position is

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Christine Garside Allen 137

tempered somewhat in Book VIII where Plato argues against homosexuality not
because it is unnatural but because it does not lead to goodness. He appeals to a
pure love between equals. Heterosexual love is similarly prescribed. Intercourse
should take place only when procreation is desired and possible. Strict sanctions
are developed to insure this. Procreation is regulated by the state, and adultery
is
punished by withdrawal of citizenship.>7 It does not seem, then, that Plato’s
views on homosexual love indicate any departure from his general theory about
women.

If my arguments have been sound, it follows that the apparent inconsistency

between the view of the equality of the sexes drawn from a common original
nature found in the Republic and the Laws, and the inferiority of woman in the
cycle of reincarnation found in the Timaeus is resolved in an underlying consistent
view of the nature of women and men. One of the consequences of this is that
it is not possible to appeal to Plato for support in radicalizing the position of
women without also dealing with his claim of the immortality of the soul.

NOTES

1], M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato’s Doctrines, Vol. 1 (New York: Humanities

Press, 1966), pp. 100-101.
2Timaeus 91. All references to Plato are taken from Plato: The Collected Dialogues,
eds, Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press,
1969).
3Mary Beard, Woman as Force in History(New York: Collier Books, 1971), pp. 324-35.
4simone de Beauvoir emphasizes this sense of Plato’s preference for being male as
follows:
“The first among the blessings for which Plato thanked the gods that he had been
created
free, not enslaved; the second, a man, not a woman.” The Second Sex, (New York:
Bantam
Books, 1968), p. xxi.
Republic VII 517b-c.
6Symposium 211d.
Tibid. 209a.
8Laws X 892a
9A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work (London: Methuen, 1963), p. 207.
10Phaedrus 245, 247, 248.
11 Republic 614c.
12Timaeus 91.
13 Republic 618c-e.
14Phaedrus 248c-d; ibid.
15Timaeus 91.

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138 Plato on Women

16Paul Friedlander, Plato: An Introduction (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1964), pp.
176-79; pp. 189-90; pp. 207-208.

171t is distressing to find de Beauvoir misinterpreting this myth as well as

treating it seri-
ously in The Second Sex. Cf. ‘““However, even if a man can subjectively go through
erotic
experiences without woman being present, she is objectively implied in his
sexuality: as
Plato says in the myth of Androgynes, the organism of the male supposes that of the
female:”
(p. 150).

18Friedlander, Plato, p. 210.

19Phaedrus 248; 249e; 249c.

20Crombie, Plato’s Doctrines, pp. 378-79.

21 Republic 452a.

22 Laws VII 804e.

23Republic 456c-d.

244, E, Taylor claims that in Plato the essence of goodness, like health, is the
same for
women and men. Plato, pp. 132-33; cf. also p. 220.

25Timaeus 50d.

26Republic 454e.

27Cf, Christine Garside, “(Can a Woman be Good in the Same Way as a Man?” in
Dialogue
X, no. 3 (1971): 534-44, for a discussion of Aristotle and Kierkegaard on women.

28Republic 466e, 464b, 543a, and Laws V 739c.

29 Laws VI 781b.

30]bid., VII 805a, 813e.

31]bid., VI 781a.

32Republic 455e; 456a.

33zaylor, Plato, p. 451, 437.

34Republic 454d.

35Cf, Plato’s fear that men might imitate women. Republic 395d-e.

36S ymposium 215-223.

37 Laws I 636c; VIII 837-838; VIII 839a-b; VI 733-735; VIII 841e. It is interesting
to
note that women and men are punished equally for adultery (Laws VI 784a), sacrilege
(VIII
851a-e, 910d), and murder of their spouse (VIII 868e).

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