WANG 1 Linda Wang Social Foundaons I Professor Portanova 29 th November, 2015 Topic 7 Primarily discussing the role of women, Plato arculated his opinion on women in the fiſth chapter of the Republic. Socrates elicits the idea of gender equality from aspects such as educaon, occupaon, marriage and family responsibility. Plato has such an advanced idea of female, yet some of his perspecves are sll bounded by the tradional male prejudice in Greece. This essay will be divided into two parts, Plato voices a feminist perspecve in the first part because Plato’s proposals introduced women to educaon and legal capacity, in other word, polical rights. Nonetheless, the second part of the essay will concentrate on how the discussions of women and family reflect Plato’s belief in male superiority. Plato is one of the few philosophers who put forward female educaon. He suggests that “So if we are going to use men and women for the same purposes, we must teach them the same thing.” (Plato V:452a) Plato arculated that women have the same rights to receive educaon and should have the same educaon system as men’s. Referring to the common idea of ancient Greece that male and female have monumental differences, Plato suggests that the only difference between male and female lies in biology, not mentality nor intelligence. Whether one shall get educaon is determined by one’s ability and capacity, rather than gender. “It’s a fine picture you have drawn of our