Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

There is no space, in ancient cultures, for gender blindness. Bodies, habits, and rights, the necessary components of a definition of “gender,” are either masculine or feminine. Politics is no exception: on the contrary, politics is the most important sphere of activity that belongs to men and excludes women. Men – one, a few, or many – govern; men deliberate and speak in public; men produce decrees and laws that they enforce; men theorize about politics. From the warriors and kings of the Homeric world to the excellent men, andres agathoi, of Athenian democracy, and to the highly individualized empire of the young Alexander, ancient Greek politics comes sometimes in the singular and sometimes in the plural, but always in the masculine. If a woman's voice can be heard in the arena of government, dissent, or advice, this occurs only in a representation that distorts, either genuinely or in jest, existing mores and policies.No political theorist seems to have anticipated Plato, or taken him seriously, in that famous, passing argument on the social or moral irrelevance of gender, a difference which, Socrates claims, matters only for procreation. Such an argument – that engendering children is the only human activity in which sexual dimorphism creates a natural division of labor – was gingerly made in the Republic, when Socrates tried to justify a common education for men and women. ... log in or subscribe to read full text