Women Guardians and Feminism in Plato’s Republic
Can women be guardians in Plato’s Republic? Was Plato a feminist? One question is appropriate and testable. The other is anachronistic and untestable. Socrates’ proposal that women should perform the same functions as men, even military functions, challenges his military-minded interlocutor’s prejudices and appears to create a problem for Socrates’ earlier principle that each person should perform the task for which that person is naturally suited.
Socrates answers his interlocutor’s objection by comparing men and women with male and female hunting dogs, since hunting is a favourite interest of his interlocutor.
The following extract considers how Socrates exploits one opinion of his interlocutor to manipulate him into accepting another contrary to a former third opinion.
Women guardians
Once again the dogs play their part in overcoming this objection. As Socrates observes, and Glauco agrees, most women are better at some activities than most men, and vice versa, but specialization actually cuts across genders, as Glauco’s experience with hunting dogs indicates. Therefore, just as some male and some female dogs make good hunting dogs, so some men and some women make good guards.
Extract from Chapter 6, ‘The Digression’, in Ivor Ludlam (2014), Plato’s Republic as a Philosophical Drama on Doing Well, p. 179.
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