ABSTRACT

Plato is often cited for his revolutionary and proto-feminist ideas about politics, philosophy, and women in his Republic and his Laws that include women in political life to a degree unprecedented in contemporary Athenian society. Nevertheless, Plato, an Athenian by birth, was subject to the influence of ongoing cultural, political, scientific, and medical authorities that viewed women as inferior and established their exclusion from political life as the norm. These influences, distilled especially in the Laws, are the cause of Plato’s double take on women, as he promotes female participation in politics on one hand and limits it on the other. This essay, therefore, shows how Plato’s ideas about women were shaped by the uniquely Athenian concerns about citizenship, democratic participation, and the female body; in particular, his views about the pathological female body, subject to the influence of the Hippocratics, reinforced existing cultural norms and played an important role in Plato’s explication of female exclusion in the Laws.