Blog #2

Mason Jenkins

Mrs. Wilhelmus

AP English Language

23 July 2013

Views on Women

            It is obvious now that Aristotle’s views on women are completely inaccurate because women are accepted and succeed in society now.  In Sophie’s World, Aristotle said that women were just “unfinished men” and played an unimportant role in reproduction.  Back then, that may have made sense to everyone because they were always expected to stay out of the way of men and have petty responsibilities.  We now realize that that statement is false because women have the same abilities as men and can do the same things.  We also know that men and women are about equal in reproduction.  The characteristics of the child come from both the male and female.  With the facts and knowledge that we have today, it is evident that Aristotle was wrong about women. 

            I believe that Plato had the most admiral views on women.  In Sophie’s World, the philosophy teacher explains that Plato believed that women had the potential to govern because they could have the same reasoning skills as men, as long as they had the same training.  On page 92, Plato says that “a state that does not educate and train women is like a man who only trains his right arm.”  For this time period, these were bold ideas, but were truer than anyone else of the time. 

            It is understandable that most of the authorities in the novel are men because at the time, women were not allowed to do much outside of children and housekeeping.  They had very little power, so any ideas that they had were just ignored by everyone else.  No women had ever even thought about taking a stand or trying to gain more rights.  They accepted the fact that men were more superior to them.