The Republic by Plato - 6 - Equality Between Men and Women
Book Seven
Quote
"Innate qualities have been distributed equally between the two sexes, and women can join in every occupation just as much as men, although they are the weaker sex in all respects."
Notes
Socrates' friends bring him back to a subject he raised earlier but only briefly, about the "sharing of wives and children." Socrates admits he skated over the topic because he believed it was controversial, but now they're making him go into it more deeply.
He says that women should receive the same education as men, including military training, which involves exercising while naked. This will be weird and awkward at first, he concedes, but even with just men the practice of exercising naked was mocked at first until it was found to be the best method of training. It won't be any different when including women, too.
The community was organized in such a way that everyone works only at the job they're best suited to work in. Socrates says that women should be included in this the same as men, and that there are no domains that should be exclusive to either men or women. Either sex can be equally well suited to any role.
Among the guardians, "all the women are to be shared among all the men, [and the] children are also to be shared, with no parent knowing which child is his, or child knowing his parent."
However, the guardians/auxiliaries must not be allowed to have sex with each other willy-nilly. The rulers must control the breeding of their men, the same way one would control the breeding of farm animals in order to produce the best stock. But the soldiers can't be allowed to know this breeding is going on. Maybe a fake lottery can be used to give the illusion that the pairing that's being decided is by chance. They will also use religious stories to justify the rules around breeding, and stigmatize sexual behaviour they want to prevent.
There will be no private possessions among the guardians or the soldiers. Socrates explains that this will prevent a lot of conflict arising from greed and selfishness when people are allowed to own things privately. It's a similar principle in how no one has his own wife, or her own husband, or their own children. Everything is shared.
Key Takeaways
Plato seems to have been quite progressive when it comes to the equality of women. Even though he does give the caveat that "women are the weaker sex in all respects", relative to the norms in the ancient world, and in ancient Greece, the idea that women should have the same opportunities as men is noteworthy. Although the surrounding context of "noble lies" and breeding control is still troubling and seemingly totalitarian.
The community Plato is developing does not look to be a metaphor for the individual after all. I proposed this possibility in the previous book when Socrates used the community as a way of getting to a definition of morality in the individual. But it seems like the community is Plato's idea of how society really should be structured. He says (or makes Socrates say) at the beginning of this book: "So that's the kind of community and political system — and the kind of person — I'm calling good and right."