플라톤의 『국가』에 나타난 여성상(女性像)

The aspects of women reflected in Plato s Politeia

Plato s proposals about women come at the beginning of Politeia V. Plato is concerns the admission of women as Guardians, and the communal life of the Guardians. He suggests the inclusion of women in the ruling class. Also he must argue for including women in the public life of the city. Next he must argue for the destruction of the family. Plato s proposes the same education for girls as for boys, freedom from housework and child care for guardian class women so that they can serve the state, and an equal opportunity to become rulers. Plato claims that men and women differ only in their sexual roles : men impregnate, women give birth. But men and women should follow the same pursuits, and women who have natures suitable to be Guardians should be appropriately trained. The idea that Plato is a Forerunner of Women s Liberation has gained support from the fact that in politeia V Plato proposes not only that women should share men s tasks but also that the family should be abolished. As well as he speaks of the community and the possession and use of wives and children. But he mentions that women are weaker than men at all pursuits. In the whole discussion that follows he shelves the question of intellectual differences between men and women. So Plato s argument is not one which a feminist would find useful or even acceptable. In any case, it has a serious gap, and it is not clear that Plato could repair it except by abandoning his beliefs about the intellectual inferiority of women. Plato s proposals about women are justified entirely by the resulting benefit to the state and not at all by women s needs or rights. Plato is not bound to be interested in the psychology of women. Plato is not interested in freeing women from the bounds of the family. It is important that the state is the ideal state. In the ideal state Plato limits his proposals for women to the Guardian class. There is nothing to suggest that the worker class do not live like fourth century Greeks, with the women at home doing the cooking and weaving. They take no part in any political process, they are unable to own or inherit property in their own right, and they are perpetual legal minors always under the authority of male relatives or guardians. The state benefits from having the best possible citizens. What he is passionately interested in is the prospect of a unified and stable state in which some at least of the citizens work solely for the state s good. The proposals about women and the family are means to that end. For Plato, the good of the state is only object worthy of consideration. which have nothing to do with the position of in the state.