Prompt 2

Corey Hostetler

AP English Language

Mrs. Wagener

September 15, 2013

Philosophy and Gender Equality

            “A state that does not educate and train women is like a man who only trains his right arm.”  No matter how true this quote by Plato is, women were often disadvantaged throughout history.  People like Lucy Stone and Doris Stevens stepped up, against belittlement, in order to try to gain rights for women around the world.  Eventually, after fighting for these rights for so long, the nineteenth amendment was passed.  This amendment gave women the right to vote and was a large step in creating equality among the sexes.

            When reading about Aristotle's thoughts on women, I was disappointed to see that such a great mind had such questionable ideas.  Some of Aristotle's ideas were that women were incomplete men and that women really didn't help out in the reproduction process.  These statements made very little sense seeing as both women and men are equally important in keeping the human civilization alive.  Though these things that Aristotle said were awful, I felt that I could not judge Aristotle wrongly seeing as he was born in a time where men were seen as being superior to women.  Since most of the authority figures in this book were from about the same time as Aristotle, I was not surprised to see that most of the authority figures were men.  Plato, in my opinion, provided the most admirable answers to gender related questions.  Though he introduced private property and family ties, which barred some freedom from women, he did admit that women were just as fit as men to rule if they were given a proper education.

            When all is said and done, I do believe that the past views of women were wrong and I am glad that there are people to stand up to fight against these unfair views.  Without these people to stand up and speak their mind, one could ponder all of the various things throughout history that could have gone differently.  Just think, what if Martin Luther King Jr. hadn't fought for civil rights or if Plato hadn't gone against the popular belief of how women should be treated.  The world as we know it would be gone and, instead, replaced with something radically different.