During third and fourth centuries, Greece was in the midst of the Peloponnesian war, and the cultural achievements of the time were laying the foundations for Western civilization. Despite this great expansion of knowledge and discovery, women were still barely afforded basic rights and were seen as second class citizens. The function of a “free-woman” in Athenian society was to be a wife and mother. Women were confined to private life before being married off by their fathers without the freedom to choose their partners. Although they could inherit land, they were legally unable to fight or carry weapons which prevented them from protecting property that they had ownership over. This is thought to have been a way to keep women beholden to men for protection (Sealey 152). Women were controlled and deprived with respect to their sexuality, without the compensation of any participation in life outside the domestic sphere (Okin, 1979). Socialization with men at any level, even within the confines of the home, was not consistent with her service to the household and commitment to chastity, frugality, and silence (Pomeroy, 1975). Plato was an important philosopher and pupil of Socrates. He united the theories that are attributed to Socrates, as well as distinguishing himself as a brilliant mind though his Platonic philosophy and many works, such as The Republic. Plato was unique in his perspective that women and men would ideally receive equal education and hold equal power. However, his reasons are hostile to much that is central to feminism. He does not argue for equality of status on grounds of fairness or of self-fulfillment for women, but rather on the grounds of the abstract political principles. He suggests that "female" refers to someone who is connected to the world on a bodily level, and "male " is someone who has risen above to a higher philosophical level (Bar On 17). While Plato can today be noted as a figure who was uncharacteristic for his time in terms of his views on male-female equality, his actions were not enough to make him a feminist because his motivations were only due to his idea of a perfect human state; not because he had any particular respect for women or thought they should be equal due to their individual merits, and in fact demonstrates quite the opposite in The Republic.
Plato’s idea of a perfect state is best outlined in his book, The Republic. In it, there are three major classes; the guardians, who are philosophers and govern the city; the auxiliaries, who are the soldiers who defend it; and producers, who compose the lowest class of farmers, artisans, etc. The whole purpose of Plato’s state is to induce homogeneity within the population through discouraging diversity while simultaneously encouraging all the classes to stay separate. This perfect state is not democratic, and is instead run by a group of philosophers who have attained the highest levels of education and are not corrupted by the desire for power or money, but put the common good first. This state would also provide equal opportunities and education for women. The function of guardianship is to be performed by men and women alike (Republic V, 451c-457b).
In addition to this, Plato focused on deconstructing the traditional family structure by abolishing the private household and the institution of marriage (Republic V, 457b-466d), with the care of children becoming a communal responsibility because no-one would know which children are theirs. No matter how much Plato stressed the ability of women to take on political and intellectual responsibilities traditionally belonging to men; Plato makes it clear through his writing that he did not stand for the elevation of women to the male status. By scrutinizing the Republic V and the structure of Plato’s ideal society, there are clear contradictions in the views toward women. Even in this perfect society, Plato defines male guardians as the “best of the citizens” and the female guardians as simply the “best of the women” (Republic V, 456e1-5). By extension, Plato asserts that the female-guardians – despite their having been educated in tandem with the males – will serve as “secondary companions” to their male counterparts (Republic V, 471c2-d4). He describes the best arrangement of soldiers, where women were positioned in the back, in case they were actually needed. This implies that men are more capable and have greater potential in warfare than women (Republic V, 471d1-4). Female guardianship only had value to men in this scenario, which supports Plato when he states that “a woman can do what her fellow man does, but is nonetheless incapable of doing it as well.”
It should be acknowledged that Plato was uncharacteristic for the time in terms of his belief that women and men should be equal. He advocates a system of equal education for men and women for the positions of guardians. He also claimed that the body is irrelevant to the proficiency of a person in a profession, concluding that a woman could be a philosopher as well as a man (Bar On 5). In his opinion, it is the soul’s excellence that defines the place and role of human beings in society, and no longer their body, endowed with male or female gender. Essentially, to accept the idea of a soul and of reincarnation is to accept the possibility of a philosopher’s soul re-entering the physical world in a female form with the same mental capacity. Although Plato asserts that women are less capable than men, especially in physical strength, he maintains that individual members of both sexes are capable of concurrently performing all the city’s functions, including rule and defense (Okin, 1979). While Plato’s thinking was progressive for the time, it was ultimately based on his concept of an ideal city, and had little to do with his true view of women. He saw them as inferior to men in every way except in domestic tasks, as was the common view at the time. His only motivation to give women equality was to create an entirely uniform society, and had nothing to do with any reasons that could be considered feminist.
Plato would have only included women as equals in the city in order to placate them and avoid any possible sources of turbulence (Allen 135). He did not promote this idea of equal female education out of any altruistic standpoint, but rather because he believed that the physical weakness and disposition of women made them resort to trickery and deception, which would be dangerous to the cohesion of his state. Plato believed that cowardly or immoral men were reborn as women, which displays that he thought of women as inherently weaker than men (Timaeus, 90e7-8). Plato was a product of a society locked into a rigid patrimonial order in which women were valued primarily as instruments of reproduction and legitimacy (Pomeroy, 1975). Emotionalism and lack of self-control were seen as products of female nature; reserving bravery, norms of reason, and objectivity for men within the intellectual and institutional structure (Just, 1989). Because of the culture in which Plato was raised, it is likely that there was a heavy influence from the cultural standards of the time on his writings and ideas. In fact, in the Timaeus, Plato explains the inferiority of women by saying that women are a result of “devolution” from the original creation; men.
Plato was by no means a feminist author or thinker in the modern sense of the term. He clearly held women in a lower regard than men, and not just by a "natural" argument for physical strength. In the modern day, it may be damaging to cite Plato as “the father of feminism” because it diminishes the feminist cause and could lead to the incorrect assumption that female equality wasn’t achieved by women. It strikes the same tone as giving Abraham Lincoln all the credit for racial equality, when he only signed the bill into law, which discredits the years of struggles that black people have endured to fight for their own freedom and equality. As far as social and political rights are concerned, Plato was ahead of his time, even of contemporary societies. Yet things become complicated as far as the question of sexuality is concerned. In this area, Plato shows himself to be extremely conservative. To him, the female gender only serves the purpose of reproduction and housework.