Differentiating Views On Women

The eleventh chapter of Sophie’s World is about the philosopher Aristotle. In Alberto’s letter to Sophie he mentions how Aristotle thought women were “incomplete in some way.”  He believe that men were, in a sense, superior to women. He believed that during reproduction the child would only receive traits and “...all the child’s characteristics lay complete in the male sperm.”  With the science and knowledge that people were provided with back then there is no way that they would have been able to know what we do now. Putting this into perspective, it is easy to see why, at the time, Aristotle believed that men were of higher quality than women. 

While Aristotle had a very biased view on women, Plato believed that men and women could perform the same tasks. “But it is worth noting that he believed women could govern just as effectively as men for the simple reason that the rulers govern by virtue of their reason.” Plato also believed if women were given the same training and did not participate in child rearing and housekeeping they would be able to reason in the same way as men. That statement is very much true. I believe that anyone who is brought up the same way will be able to perform the same types of tasks. While men and women are very much equal, there are most definitely things that men can do better than women and vice versa. Though I may be biased (because I am female) I do think that Plato’s answer to the many questions of equality regarding gender is very admirable. 

While reading the book, it is easy to see that many of the characters are men. In the time period that was mostly talked about in Sophie’s World men did seem to be superior to women. Regarding that, it makes sense why the philosophers that were talked about most were male. The women that were included did not seem as if they were even remotely as important as the men. The female philosophers were never as successful as the males mainly because of the view society had on women then. However, since Sophie and Hilde are both female it did not completely stand out that plenty of the characters were men. 

In conclusion, though I did not agree with Aristotle’s views on women, he was not the only great philosopher in his time. Plato was able to look past some of the differences that Aristotle saw as he looked at society’s roles.