Misogyny in Classic Western Philosophy

[Ingenium]

1. THE EXPERIENCE OF READING CLASSIC WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AS A FEMALE

While reading the commentary of modern female philosophers or scholars who have surveyed the development of ideas by the classic Western male philosophers, I’ve discovered that I have something in common with them. What happens is that, over time, we experience an unusual (and unexpected) outcome from our readings. One can read along, considering and evaluating the bases for the many illustrious and overarching ideas about humanity that she encounters and, almost invariably, two things will happen. First, the reader will come across -- sometimes either as snippets inserted somewhat incongruously into the middle of a major work or as commentary that continues for pages -- some surprising negativity leveled at women. Second, as she reads on down through the centuries (or, indeed, travels backward from the recent past), she begins to discover that theories she might read that appear to be presented as applicable to “humanity” often end up reflecting the experience of particular men during particular times and, furthermore, serving as justifications and rationalizations for both the inferiority of women and their exploitation and control by men.

It’s akin to an out-of-body experience: I’m in the situation of reading ideas which purport to represent something essential about either humanity generally or women specifically -- both groups which include me and therefore the ideas about which are of great interest to me -- yet the sense is of being a muzzled observer of a group of men with a particular worldview talking with each other about ideas presumed globally valid, and they’re oblivious or indifferent that I’m there in the room watching myself be excluded or disparaged by them.

It’s pretty disconcerting when one comes to realize after a time that it’s in fact not uncommon for the eminent male philosophers of Western civilization to wax misogynistic when their attention is directed to the ‘nature of woman.’ One of the things I’ve discovered when reading the commentary of modern women philosophers about this experience is that they note how, prior to the advent of feminism, these pejorative commentaries regarding the female were consigned to near-absolute silence in contemporary scholarly analyses of the classics. But not addressing the misogyny can be extremely problematic for women, because the works of these philosophers form the basis for both philosophical debate and further exploration of ideas in a modern context. As it turns out, this very nature of philosophy to be an ongoing, contextual narrative of the human condition is what both confronts women with significant dilemmas and offers the potential for addressing them. But not without a lot of work…excruciating work sometimes, as it turns out.

By no means am I suggesting that all of the major Western philosophical works are blatantly misogynistic. In fact, there are relatively few in which the misogyny is as openly expressed in negative language as when we’re described as “the devil’s gateway” (Tertullian), or as “big children their whole life long” (Schopenhauer). In fact, if this sort of obvious commentary occurred more often, it would perhaps make the dilemma a little easier to dismiss. But the essential problem goes much deeper than this. When the subject is handled more subtly, females may be described in apparently positive terms, but with an assertion that their roles are different from the roles of men, albeit equally important. However, further inquiry will usually reveal the existence of an implicit hierarchy lurking behind this language of “difference”, in that values equated with the ‘masculine’ are assigned a higher status than values equated with the ‘feminine’. Once this has been established, the common path taken is to assert a hierarchical understanding of the relationship between men and women. Even more fundamentally, it’s theorized that man is the ‘norm’ that defines the human, and woman is thus defined only in relation to man (and often found deficient). So what we find is that philosophers of this sort characterize their efforts as exploring and theorizing about the ‘human’ condition and yet they offer up ideas and assumptions about women that must certainly have impinged upon their understanding of ‘humanity’ in the first place.


2. ABOUT PERSPECTIVE

Women who read philosophy (I’m not referring here to women who are professional philosophers, as they’re in an altogether different category of expertise) will fall under one of perhaps three (but really two) relevant political categories: feminists, ‘not-a-feminist-buts’, and the rest. The difference between first two is mostly a matter of identifying or not with the label, but essentially maintaining similar viewpoints about women and social equality. The third is a mindset probably best labeled ‘traditional’ rather than neutral, as the existing pre-feminist cultural standard was of fairly rigid sex-based roles. In some cases, it would even be considered to represent females holding the view that men are their superiors. Certainly these readers would be expected to find the most agreement with the views of many classic philosophers.

However, the expression of philosophical concepts isn’t merely an intellectual undertaking, it’s also tied into a particular moralistic and ethical (and ultimately socio-political) explanation of the world. So what those who read classic philosophy from the feminist perspective end up trying to resolve is how to separate that which is true about the philosophers’ ideas from their misogyny, or that which is false, with the hopes that the two aren’t so inseparable that this ends up being impossible, essentially forcing one to search for some alternative basis for exploring these sorts of ideas.

Feminists assert that a great deal of male theorizing about women’s experience has tended to disregard or invalidate that experience. The issue isn’t that there’s an independent female perspective per se, that there’s any particular characteristic(s) that women have in common that places them all under the generic brand “woman”, or that there’s a female exclusivity to truth, but rather it’s asserted that men can’t claim any of this either. It’s quite likely that philosophy would have evolved differently if female experience had all along had the same entry into the field as male experience, since philosophical theories emanating exclusively from men reflect only men’s experience (including their experience of women). As it is, the symbolic division by gender appears to be an essential and enduring way of articulating people’s experience. And the experiences of women would be expected to vary over time and by circumstance from the experiences of men and, to take it a step further, experiences will vary among differing groups of women. So there’s a category and degree of the proposition and/or analysis of beliefs and assumptions that are fundamentally missing from the philosophical canon, because women’s inquiries haven’t, for various identifiable reasons, made the cut.


3. SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM SPECIFICALLY?

Considering that the historical body of theories we have available in the West about human nature was pretty much dominated by a select and relatively homogenous group of men expounding on ‘humanity’ as a whole, its utility in interpreting female experience is subject to debate. Bias is reflected in the way these men’s theories are developed according to fundamental norms, like reason and objectivity being gendered male. And, beyond that, their theories are cast a priori as normative in respect to everyone. That members of this group would err in theorizing about the situation of all people isn’t an unknown problem in philosophy. In fact, most scholars accept that there are parts (sometimes large parts) of any given philosopher’s ideas that don’t hold true when applied beyond particular limited circumstances. But prior to the women’s movement, virtually no dissenting voices were heard concerning the problems resulting from male bias in addressing women in philosophical terms. It was as though there was this collective lack of insight that a good deal of what was written about “man’s nature” was not really what men were about, but instead constructions of themselves in contrast with their views of women. Perhaps the form that these constructions took dating back as far as Aristotle, which essentially justified the irrelevancy of females in the loftier (public) world of philosophical ideas, effectively prevented women from finding a forum to
persuasively challenge those ideas.

There’s bias in the traditional exclusion of woman as a representative model of human nature, which reflects the assumption that the complete story of humanity can be explained by representing only half of its experiential element. There’s bias in the emphasis on the mind and reason as characterizing human nature, along with these traits supposed to be associated with masculinity, and the corresponding downplaying or reduction in status of the bodily and the emotions, which are supposed associated with femininity. Going back as far as Plato and Aristotle, reason has been deemed to be the defining characteristic that makes the being ‘human’, that which separates “man” from animals. What women find troubling about this is that it turns out he really meant “man” as separate and at the pinnacle of the sentient hierarchy. (Although I suppose that’s still a step up from Hegel’s likening of women to plants.)

Aristotle distinguishes clearly between males and females by asserting that women don’t share the rational capabilities of men. He attempted to support what was already his belief through his systematic (in that he conducted and documented his ‘factual observations’), but nonsensical biological accounting of the physiological differences between women and men (most of which revolved around the differing degrees of ‘heat’ that he believed they emanate), which he attributed to creating the deficiencies in women and, in fact, prevented them from taking the “proper form” of a human (e.g., male). And Aristotle’s interesting rendition of reproductive mechanisms supported his ideas, as he found women deficient due to the fact that they can’t produce semen, which is what he determined to contain the full human being. Thus, in procreation it was the man who supplies the substance of a human being (the form), while the woman supplied only the nourishment (the matter). Despite the fact that it produced some pretty far-flung conclusions, Aristotle’s system of scientific methodology and analysis remained influential for many centuries. His corresponding finding that women were basically “misbegotten men“ carried on, as well.

Theologians over the next few centuries built upon this Artistotlean theme of innate (and natural) female inferiority, relying upon the ‘man created in the image of God’ framework. Tertullian was able to offer up Eve’s story as examplar of weakness in women. His admonitions to women were to dress and behave with modesty and humility as a reflection of their enduring need to remember that sin was introduced into the world through the female: “And do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live, too.” Augustine and Thomas Aquinas diverged from the idea that women inherited the shame of Eve and allowed that both men and women were made in the image of God. But they believed that even if Eve hadn’t partaken of the forbidden fruit, she still would’ve been subjected to Adam’s authority, as this was a natural hierarchy included in God’s plan of creation and that, as Aquinas writes, “the power of rational discernment is by nature stronger in man”, making him the natural ruler of woman.

Later, Schopenhauer went so far as to claim that a woman’s inferior ability to reason limited her ability to be moral. (Schopenhauer is widely regarded as the most vitriolic in his diatribes regarding females, with much speculation over the how this was influenced by his complicated relationship with his socialite mother. Nevertheless, his theories have served as foundational for other philosophers and therefore can’t be summarily discounted.) Essentially, to the degree women are feminine (as opposed to ‘human’), they aren’t rational due to their undeveloped and emotionally unstable natures. As his forbears do, Schopenhauer places women on the philosophical periphery, because his paradigm of the ‘thinker’ is modeled on a concept of male nature.

In such conceptualization can be seen an infamous heritage of characterizing women as moral lightweights that found its way down through the centuries from Plato’s Timaeus, which describes woman as perhaps the reincarnation of ignoble men:

“It is only males who are created directly by the gods and are given souls. Those who live rightly return to the stars, but those who are ‘cowards or [lead unrighteous lives] may with reason be supposed to have changed into the nature of women in the second generation’. This downward progress may continue through successive reincarnations unless reversed. In this situation, obviously it is only men who are complete human beings and can hope for ultimate fulfillment; the best a woman can hope for is to become a man.”

Kant’s approach was similar, but perhaps subtler in that he stressed the need for both masculine and feminine qualities. However, when it comes to morality, he deemed those qualities necessary for living a higher moral life to be those that he identified with the masculine, such as the ability to learn, deliberate in depth and develop well-reasoned principles. Women naturally embodied beauty, delicacy, modesty, sympathy. On the one hand, he characterizes these two sets of qualities as complementary, giving them a surface luster of egalitarianism. But when he elevates moral actions that arise from the dictates of duty (which is in line with the masculine qualities) over morality that arises from sympathy or compassion (which is the feminine), it becomes apparent that acts of virtue are accorded higher and lower status in this respect.

The dichotomies of mind/body, reason/emotion, form/matter, nature/culture are used by certain philosophers to support their views on sexual difference. What organizes the dualisms and gives them their distinctively sexual character is how they’re distinguished according to the ‘sphere’ in which they manifest, denoted as either ‘public’ or ‘private’. The private, or domestic, sphere is where the philosophers are concerned with natural interactions; that is, relations between women and men and relations within families. This sphere is primarily concerned with physical bodies in terms of reproduction and care, and is the realm of the domestic and of consumption. The private sphere is also the realm of the passions, including sexual passion and human emotional needs. The public sphere is regulated by relations of exchange between individuals who are defined by their relation to the ‘state’ or the market; e.g., administrators of justice, buyers and sellers of labor, owners of property and products, etc. These relations are conceived to be artificial or cultural and involving rational decisions and interactions which override any elemental (and prepolitical) relations that one may have had with nature.

Because at their core, these conceptual constructions of human life are ordered according to the association of private/public dichotomy with the sexual specification of the two spheres of activity, gender can’t really be separated out without fundamentally changing the structure. Likewise, any attempt to revise or reconstruct conceptually the private and the public spheres is hindered by the interconnectedness of the gendered associations. That is to say, the difficulty of separating women’s assignment to the private sphere is the result of the extensive linking of that private sphere with the body, emotions and nature, which are designated feminine. It’s supposed that the private, domestic realm is merely for ‘reproduction’ and servicing the natural needs of humans for food and shelter. What is thought to be distinctively human, transcendent and related to human progress occurs outside of the household, in the public realm, which has been taken a priori as the realm where men transcend animal nature and create, through the higher virtues, human morality and the progressive record of humanity. So it becomes impossible to reconsider women’s social role and status without also rethinking these dichotomies and the gendering of our spheres of activity. (Politically, it’s been the ‘civil rights’ movements’ as vehicles for changing ‘civil society’ that reflect the attempts of various groups to create bridges for crossing the public/private divide, an example being bringing rape and domestic violence into the legislative arena.)

There’s also bias in that women’s voices hadn’t been widely heard in the Western philosophical world until the last century or so. According to philosopher/historian Eileen O’Neill (University of Massachusetts), there’s an entire body of work from women of the 17th and 18th century in England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland and Russia that was accepted during their times, but has been virtually unknown historically. This was work that ”addressed a wide range of issues in topics and questions contemporary to the philosophical circles of their time, including metaphysics, epistemology, moral theory, social and political philosophy, philosophical theology, natural philosophy, and the philosophy of education.” O’Neill notes the problem of “disappearing ink” and explains that despite the “acknowledgment of their contributions is evidenced by the representation of their work in the scholarly journals of the period and by the numerous editions and translations of their texts that continued to appear into the nineteenth century”, these bodies of work were not passed on. She attributes this to a number of reasons, including “the standard (socially encouraged) practice of anonymous authorship for women…the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ‘purification’ of philosophy” from topics that were addressed, such as women’s nature and societal roles…and “taking Kantianism as the culmination of early modern philosophy and as providing the project for future philosophical inquiry, [German historians] viewed treatment of 'the woman question' as precritical work, of purely anthropological interest. In sum, by the nineteenth century, much of the published material by women, once deemed philosophical, no longer seemed so.” She considers this as a matter of the women’s “views or underlying episteme were ones that simply did not ‘win out,’” although she notes that on “odd feature of ‘philosophical views that did not win out” was ”that they have been frequently characterized as ‘feminine’.”

It’s important to recognize that this body of work was not passed along with the male-authored works, not because there were some clearly established criteria of selection that ultimately excluded them from the historical record, but because of the growing acceptance at the same time of what O’Neill characterizes as the early modern view that “a woman philosopher is something barely possible and always unnatural,” and, perhaps more significantly, the potential threat of the female “exercise of reason, and thus her rightful role as citizen…and right to education” in the “newly democratized public sphere” in the aftermath of the French Revolution. It’s also worth noting that the excluded works from prior centuries referenced above are by no means consistent in content, attitude or tone with modern works that would fall under the category “feminist theory” or “feminist philosophy”. In fact, the range of theories and opinions in them varies widely, as would be expected. What makes them perhaps most noteworthy to feminists is that women wrote them and that they were categorically excluded from the historical canon.


4. INHERENT TENSIONS OF MISOGYNISTIC THEMES IN PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY

Plato, opining as the great dualist that he was, regarded the body and soul as separate entities, and believed that the basis for morality resided within the rational part of the soul, which should always exercise control and guidance over the non-rational part, where the human desires and appetites of the body were centered. His view was that the soul continued on after death in the realm of pure forms, reincarnating in a human body again somewhere down the road. Yet his presumed ‘purity’ was still subject to a hierarchy, since superior souls necessarily would go into male bodies. This, then, is an inherent contradiction (and indicative of his misogyny), since he deemed that the quality of souls WAS, in fact, determined by the nature of the physical bodies in which they were housed. The presumed separation between souls and bodies doesn’t apply because, if it did, then there would be no distinction made between the type of bodies, either male or female, into which souls reincarnated. So while Plato may have theorized that both men and women had the capacity for virtues of the same degree of quality (albeit not the same virtues themselves), his misogyny is reflected in his assertion that souls can be ‘ranked’, with the superior souls being housed in male bodies and the inferior ones in female bodies, thus being rendered incapable of realizing their greater intellectual and moral potential. This same idea is demonstrated in his Phaedrus, where it’s the vision of a male body that evokes in the soul a recollection of absolute beauty. (Of course this evocation could perhaps be more reasonably attributed to Plato’s homosexual inclinations than to generic ideals of beauty.)

In a manner fairly typical of other philosophers, Rousseau urges that for “right guidance, always follow the leadings of nature. Everything that characterizes sex should be respected as established by nature.” Underlying this genre of prescriptions regarding the need for humans to adhere to ‘the laws of nature’ is the concession that it’s possible, even if not desirable, to alter or circumvent those laws. As feminist philosopher Louise M. Antony asks: “…if nature is straightforwardly deterministic, and if the social status quo is simply a neutral unfolding of the laws of nature, then why do we need prescriptions and warnings in order not to disrupt it? Or if, on the other hand, we accept that maintenance of the status quo depends partly upon our contingent human choices, then an epistemological question arises: How do we know that the qualities we see displayed by men and women are due to differences in NATURES, rather than to the differences in their circumstances that are socially constructed?”

Aristotle, Rousseau and Kant, among others, asserted reason to be fundamental to humanity, but also realized this presented a problem, in that women weren’t devoid of rationality. So their challenge was to theorize how men and women generally shared a ‘human’ nature, but how to distinguish women from men when it came to what they determined to be the capacity for achieving a higher level of morality and virtue. The problem they faced was that there still had to be some specifically male realization of that nature that was identified as a matter of kind rather than of degree; otherwise the distinctions would still apply to measurable differences between men. Their solution to this problem was to first affirm that women and men shared ’humanness’ of a generic sort, but to then add the qualification that women were, by the prescriptions of nature, unable to fully realize this humanness. This was accomplished by defining women primarily through their reproductive capacities. According to philosophy professor (Penn State) Nancy Tuana:

“Woman’s arrested development, woman as a natural mutation, her weaker cognitive abilities, her inferior moral sense, her greater propensity for sin—all these are intimately related, in complex ways, to the conclusion that the reproductive process takes a greater toll on woman than on man. This premise has been largely responsible for the idea that woman’s reproductive organs play a more significant role in her physical and mental health than do those of man.”

“Classical medical theory defined ’hysteria’ as a disorder of woman caused by disturbances of the womb. This view is reflected in the etymology of the term, since its root is the Greek word hystera, which means uterus… Since the condition of the womb was considered central to a woman’s general health…physicians frequently prescribed intercourse and pregnancy as cures for women’s ills.”

“Male seminal fluids were seen as necessary for the health of the uterus, since they provided the needed moisture. Hippocrites claimed that the womb, deprived of such fluids, would dry up”…and go in search of moisture elsewhere, thus detaching and roaming the body, perhaps even suffocating the woman. Aristotle’s dubious biological reports went further, to offer that too much sex could lead to the same result, prolapsion of the womb until intercourse was moderated and the womb could migrate back to its proper place. Medical ‘procedures’ from the ridiculous to the horrendous were used to help this migration occur.

One can look back through time to better understand the historical context of social and cultural assumptions about women’s nature and how this influenced “scientific” understanding of the female (and vice versa). Women as ‘natural’ mutations with inferior intellect, ruled by bodily impulses and emotions; these views are essentially based on conclusions that the reproductive process not only affects women to a greater degree than men, but also that it disables them and renders them permanently deficient in comparison with men. It was once a philosopher adopted this “biology as destiny” viewpoint as justification for his ideas regarding the natural inferiority of women that he could then open the door to a determination that men were by natural dictate quintessentially human. Femininity could still be analyzed according to the higher moral and intellectual standards, but any assessment would necessarily reflect the inability of women to achieve such standards due to their “natural” inferiority. Ultimately, women could be moral, but only to a degree and only insofar as morality could be applied to women. Measured by the human standard (aka ‘male’), they were necessarily morally deficient. From that point, it took little more effort to conclude that just as reason serves men in conquering the natural world, so it will serve them in constructing and controlling women.

This theme of controlling woman as a necessary way to control the societal impact of her “destructive” emotions arises repeatedly, and is the basis of feminists’ contention of a deeply ingrained male fear of women and the resulting compulsion to contain them within the private domain in order to maintain the order of the public one. (It’s also asserted to be a thinly disguised attempt at controlling social norms regarding paternity or property rights). Rousseau noted that if women were given free rein to their desires, “men would be tyrannized by women. For, given the ease with which women arouse men’s sense and reawaken in the depths of their hearts the remains of ardors which are almost extinguished, men would finally be their victims and would see themselves dragged to death without ever being able to defend themselves.” Some feminists ponder whether passages such as this betray a deeper male fear, which is that without economic, social or even reproductive dependence on men, heterosexuality becomes a less obvious choice for women.


5. THE FEMINIST CONTRIBUTION TO RESOLVING THE PROBLEM

The missing half of the human story can't simply be added on, or woven in as a sub-plot, because to do so doesn’t address the dilemma of the conceptualized public/private spheres and that association of them with particular qualities as masculine and others as feminine. As well, attempts to simply include or incorporate women into whatever norms are suggested by certain theories, or that ‘the feminine’ should somehow be assigned arbitrarily the status of “equal” to ‘the masculine’ doesn’t work for theories based on gendered virtue.

If the goal of philosophy is to advance human understanding of ourselves in a very general way or, more practically, to serve as a tool by which we can live more intelligent and virtuous lives, then such goals should equally apply to the lives of women. But when it comes to the Western classics, they don’t. And while feminist analysis and critique of philosophy has made this more apparent, Western culture still reflects this misogynistic inheritance. The result of this is that girls and boys are still raised in our society to see women as predominantly creatures of the private sphere and, when they venture into the public realm, as less capable and less valuable than men, intellectually, physically, and sometimes even morally. (I saw a great modern example of the public/private sphere issue raised recently in a blog discussion about how women who post even the most mundane of pictures on photo sites like 'Flikr' are subject to suggestive or obscene comments from men. If they complain about this, they’re often told that if they don’t want to get harassed, then don’t post the pictures in the first place. This emphasizes how women will enter into a public realm and just because of the fact that they're out there, it’s considered acceptable both to harass them and to hold them responsible for motivating that harrassment.) Women have to deal with the continuing barrage of messages of inferiority and combat them, in ourselves as well as in those who patronize and belittle us, and worse, physically and sexually abuse us.

As previously noted, classical Western philosophical tradition generally either ignores female experience or perpetuates concepts of female inferiority. The theories of male philosophers have taught successive generations that reason and emotional discipline define human excellence (or even human nature itself) and that women lack these capacities. As a result, women have been left to see ourselves and our activities as being of lesser moral and intellectual value. This view extends to other areas of philosophical inquiry, including ethics, epistemology, sociology, political theory, aesthetics, etc. So, necessarily, any approach to expand or improve philosophical inquiry faces ideas so deeply entrenched that they’re easily overlooked or taken as aphoristic rather than justifiably subject to scrutiny or questioning.

So along came the feminists of the 19th and 20th centuries, re-examining and reinterpreting the history of philosophy. Since philosophical exploration is a progressive and dynamic enterprise that relies upon the assumptions and theories of past philosophers, and as the misogynistic views of those philosophers have come to light, modern scholars find themselves in the position of making the ‘baby and bathwater’ sort of decision. One can attempt to discard what a particular philosopher had said about women and keep the rest, but this is often difficult to do if the work contains deeply entrenched conceptions of human nature that recognize the male as normative and build complex and lengthy discourses on this opinion. The strategy to deal with this requires trying to develop some counter theories very specifically tailored to the particular work being analyzed in order to prove women to be as completely human as men. An alternative methodology has been to contend that the philosopher’s foundational theorizing about women is inseparable from the work in toto and to then bring forward fundamental questions about the limits and utility of the philosophical enterprise itself, because of these developmental limitations.

Early feminist philosophers of note such as de Beauvoir and Firestone tried to reconcile feminist insights with already existing systems of thought, trusting that there was somewhere to be found a universal neutrality and adhering to the orthodoxy of philosophical dualisms like mind/body and nature/culture as givens rather than value-laden constructions that diminish women and their experience. As a result, their theorizing tacitly accepted both the superiority of ‘masculine’ values and women’s inferiority as a consequence of her reproductive capacity, leading them to conclude that freedom for women was achieved by transcending the limitations of their bodies, that childbirth and motherhood were inherently constricting or worse, ‘barbaric’ and that the domestic sphere was to be recognized as disadvantageous to women wishing to explore life in the public sphere of ideas and the creation of values. So this period of feminist theorizing was a mixed bag: on one hand, there was the much-needed identification and accounting of female oppression as categorical in Western thought and, on the other, a continuing predisposition to locating the source of women’s inferior status in female biology, leading to the renunciation of that biology as a liberative strategy. There is in this line of thinking an implied need for female disembodiment in order to transcend the ‘animalistic’ functions intrinsic to female nature. Thus it’s not as much of a leap forward as one might hope. As social and political philosopher (Univ. of Sydney) Moira Gatens notes:

“The necessity to be disembodied begs the question of the implicit maleness of the labourer, the citizen, the ethical person. Males can approach the achievement of these ideals only because of the sexed segregation involved in socio-political life. They are able to be ‘disembodied’ in the public sphere because ‘natural’ functions, childrearing, sensuality, and so on, have become the special province of women and are confined to the private sphere. The conflicts and compromises involved for women who ‘choose’ to be both wives/mothers and (paid) workers in the public sphere have no parallel in men’s lives.”

Some modern feminist philosophers approach the problem by questioning traditional views of morality, ethics, and issues related to reason, rationality and emotion, and arguing that feminism shouldn’t err as the classical male philosophers did by excessively relying on rationality and empiricism and consequently undervaluing emotion and intuition. This argument is based on the assertion that it’s not just content, but also methodological assumptions and epistemology which reflect male bias.

Others believe that theorizing according to the idea of natural, genetically determined sex difference is inherently problematic, not because there aren’t differences, but because of the tendency of the theorist to distort his views both as to what those differences are and as to what they mean. While it’s possible to philosophize regarding difference without making a qualitative inference (or even to conclude that equality doesn’t necessarily lead to standardization), it’s not something that humans thus far have done very well. And the end result of this line of thinking tends to be the dismissal or disparagement of large groups of people as deficient and even morally inferior. Alternatively, that there are different kinds of goodness is a generally acceptable notion in modern thought; but it doesn’t address questions concerning the origin and nature of differences which, in turn, doesn’t address questions concerning to what degree they’re within the control of individuals. As British philosopher Mary Midgley notes,

“Nobody who brings forward biological causes supposes that they replace social causes. They merely supplement them, as the original qualities of food supplement the effects of cooking in accounting for the properties of the finished dish…people’s upbringing is normally just as far out of their control as their genetic constitution is. What is called ‘biological determinism’ is not more of an attack on freedom than the social determinism (or economic determinism) which is accepted without moral qualms in the social sciences. What is injurious is not determinism, but fatalism – that is, the pretence that bad things which are in fact within our control lie outside of it and are incurable.”

“On any view of causes, a great deal in the life of each of us is completely out of our power, and our freedom must consist in the way we handle that small but crucial area which actually does come before us as choice… Moralists only able to think of autonomy, of the active imposition of the will on what is round us, miss the essential values of receptivity, of contemplation, of openness to the splendours of what is not oneself. Our inheritance, both social and natural, is not a shocking intrusion on our privacy and freedom, but a realm for us to live in.”

Ultimately, as it has been since women’s movements first gained ground in the 19th century, this is as much a political struggle as it is a philosophical one. It’s the nature of the beast, and it’s a dualistic, oppositional and negating beast that in significant ways portrays the 21st century woman no differently than it did the woman of the 4th century BCE. Even in the 21st century, ancient ideas about female nature are translated into the ways we talk about and think about science, which often retains notions of ‘passivity’ (egg as passive receptor of the active agent sperm) or ‘lack’ (the gonad lacks the addition of H-Y antigen and thus remains female) when it comes to female-ness in genetics and reproductive mechanisms. Difference is often treated conceptually in the way we view the world; it’s an absence, in that difference is first characterized when something is ‘lesser’ and, even more significantly, when one thing falls short of reaching an ideal attributed to another thing deemed as inherently not ‘lacking’.

It seems from my own survey of the available literature that there’s been an evolution in feminist approaches to philosophy over the last several decades that has taken the discipline far beyond its earlier narrow (and thus limiting) criticism and/or reconstruction approach of the classics that was particularly concerned with promoting ideas of a generic “woman” as a perpetual counter to generic “man”. This, in my view, is a good and necessary thing, as it prevents feminist philosophers from 1) repeating the same mistake that the classic male philosophers made in assuming one narrowly-constructed group as the paradigmatic "human ideal” by which all else is measured, and 2) relegating their scholarship as the abiding “Other” that cannot journey beyond that which is deemed to be strictly “women’s issues.” What is broadened by this evolved feminist approach is an exploration of more fundamental changes to the philosophical tradition that also address other “differences”, such as those of race, class, and culture, and offers up a much richer and more complex (and more useful) panorama of ideas and theories regarding the human condition.

[Nothingness]

[Satyr]

I love the beginning premise.

It is hatred and not reason that comes to these conclusions and so all opinions that say anything negative about a modern protected species and group must be motivated by something evil and unhealthy.

Precious.

One could argue that current cultural trends place restrictions to certain perspectives when in the past no such restrictions existed.

Funny.

[Ingenium]

Hatred arises where there is first ignorance. Or fear. Or both.

A word of warning satyr: I won't tolerate your antics on this thread. You've said your little piece, now go find something you can love, elsewhere.

[Satyr]

Hatred arises where there is first ignorance. Or fear. Or both.

A word of warning satyr: I won't tolerate your antics on this thread. You've said your little piece, now go find something you can love, elsewhere.

Dear girl, you start with a premise that is prejudiced and flawed and you expect to be taken seriously?

The term misogyny implies that the opinions in question are motivated by an emotion rather than reason.
This is yet to be established.

The idea that any opinion that expre34sses a negative opinion about a group is a prejudiced one.

You have yet to establish the fact that these opinions are motivated or based on emotion and so you are the one who is motivated by emotions.

Good luck.

How many times can I repeat to you the truth about how you prove the opinions you seek to destroy or contradict with the arguments you use and the manner in which you use them?

If you believe that arguing your perspective will be an easy affair, as it is amongst your group of friends and the sexist imbeciles you've grown accustomed to confronting, then you are in for a surprise.

This ain't Kansas Alice.

[Ingenium]

How many times can I repeat to you the truth about how you prove the opinions you seek to destroy or contradict with the arguments you use and the manner in which you use them?

No more times. I'm not interested in further dialogue with you.

[Satyr]

Typical.

You aren't interested because I don't buy into your cultural bullshit.

You tried to turn things around and make sex differences a cultural construct, under the word gender, when it's the absence of sex differences that is the cultural construct.

Now you propose a position which takes it for granted that there is a tradition in philosophy which is motivated by hatred.

Fear is the underlying emotion behind all human activities.
How one reacts or copes or deals with this is what differentiates the subjective from the more objective perspective.

[Ingenium]

I said "no more times".

[tentative]

Ingenium,

Just a first impression... It would seem that women are rarely accosted in any large sense, but are relegated to the margins in a thousand "little deaths", both historically and now as an embedded cultural POV. I remain uncertain how the mold is to be broken. The 'inferiority of females' is the pervasive environment. It seems to me that we somehow have to accept that all philosophers made that shit up, and philosophy, like history, has to be constantly re-written in light of current culture and understanding. But the process would of necessity be slow. Historical classic philosophy is hallowed ground, and approaches religion in too many ways.

So what do you propose as a solution?

[Nothingness]

The solution is to lie to women because they'd much rather a lie than hear something that displeases them.

[Pandora]

Men are the same way - they love flattery and ego-stroking.

[Ingenium]

The topic of this thread is a discussion of the classic male philosopher's ideas about women. Not people's personal opinions of 'how guys and gals can get along by playing games' or the other juvenile stuff that reflects the level of male-female interactions on ILP. So if that's what you have to contribute, then please take it over to the "mundane babble" forum or whatever it's called.

Just a first impression... It would seem that women are rarely accosted in any large sense, but are relegated to the margins in a thousand "little deaths", both historically and now as an embedded cultural POV. I remain uncertain how the mold is to be broken. The 'inferiority of females' is the pervasive environment. It seems to me that we somehow have to accept that all philosophers made that shit up, and philosophy, like history, has to be constantly re-written in light of current culture and understanding. But the process would of necessity be slow. Historical classic philosophy is hallowed ground, and approaches religion in too many ways.

So what do you propose as a solution?

Well, a lot of that 'hallowed ground' has already been tackled by a great many feminist philosophers over the last several decades. Women are still behind in making inroads into the male-dominated philosophy departments in academia, but it is happening. And that's really a very significant thing, because if we've learned anything from the women's movement, it's that we don't effect change until we're right there on the ground alongside the men. That's why the political aspect of the feminist movement -- meaning that which has gained women entry onto the various playing fields -- has been so important. But if you consider that the movement is already over 100 years old and we're only now beginning to achieve parity in terms of education, employment and property ownership (or having a woman for the first time as a serious contender for the presidency), it's obvious that the change doesn't happen overnight. Although it's an insidious thing, this change, because it's both more and less pervasive than people think, depending on where you're looking.

Even more, women's studies departments at colleges are creating the opportunities for scholarly treatments of the subject. The only thing about that is, while it's well and good to have the forum, it does have the potential for relegating this to being viewed as specifically a 'women's issue' rather than as an underlying problem with the construction of some of the basic tenants of western thought.

IMO, the point is for this to evolve from being just the 'women's issue' or an approach to male bias as a particular object of study and instead to look at the history of philosophy in a broader context, as a cultural activity. Approaching it this way allows us to better see how cultures privilege certain categories of thought (even while characterizing theories as 'universal' or 'neutral') and what relation these categories have to the understanding of 'difference'. Regardless of whether it's gender or whatever, if we consider the binary oppositions and categories that western male philosophers have employed throughout the ages (or dichotomies presented by philosophers as logical tools that covertly promote particular cultural values by treating a conceptual division as if it were a factual or natural one), then we can keep and build upon what's truly useful and move beyond that which arose from inadequate or limited constructions of human life in the first place. That is to say, move beyond seeing this problem as the limitations of particular male philosophers' attitudes rather than with philosophy itself. We'd have to consider where and how philosophy as a discipline can be neutral, or what that even means. I don't think it's realistic to have the goal that eventually we'd view the idea of a 'feminist' approach as obsolete, but it seems possible to envision that adding the social, political and economic experience of women into the mix would contribute toward transforming philosophy into a human enterprise, rather than a male one.

As I noted in the essay, it's not in the interest of pursuing truth to maintain a feminst separatism from the classics. Philosophy has helped form our conceptions of masculinity and femininity, and it's not possible to understand female experience without analyzing its historical construction from the male-dominated perspective. We're all products of the culture, the culture is characterized by causal relations, and we certainly can't assume that women will develop some sort of a priori truth based only on their experience (especially considering it's never been separate from influence by men). However, it doesn't always work that we can simply revise a particular male philosopher's view or overlay it with an updated feminist perspective. As Moira Gatens noted in her book "Feminism and Philosophy", in some respects, women have been portrayed as serving as a 'bridge' for man between nature and culture, mind and body, and private and public spheres. It's problematic, in that women can't both act as the 'bridge' and make the crossing themselves. Some feminists point out that what happens when we try to do this is that we end up being seen as simply mimicking men and not really addressing the sexism inherent in this construction in the first place.

I think we have no choice but to go forward from where we are, recognizing that the starting line is always moving along in a progressive direction. We aren't beyond patriarchy, of course, but we also aren't necessarily aspiring toward complete neutrality, either. I'm fairly optimistic, having come across a huge body of literature on this subject (more than I could ever hope to read in a lifetime) that's been enabled by the women's movement. It leads me to believe that the dynamic nature of philosophical inquiry serves as a viable means for its self-correction. Granted, for women, there's an practical urgency to taking this forward at a faster pace than the millenia it's taken to get to this point, since these outdated ideals of womanhood and femininity conflict so much with the reality of women's lives today. But there's been a lot of work done on deconstructing the traditional ideas and theories, as well as identifying and integrating female experience into interpretations of morality and the meaning of life. So my studied opinion is that I think that mare has left the barn.

[Mastriani]

Context.

Societal context of the author and writing itself, and the myriad cultural contextualisations that we, so many years later, are not fully privvy too, in any certain fashion. We can only moderately entertain criticism, and even then, what can be done about it?

Not withstanding, the writers in the modern era, who so ingloriously call themselves "philosophers" write little to nothing of value, and only seem to follow whatever linguistic formula is certain to get them published and make certain they can remain comfortably seated within the confines of their peers protection(s).

Although I can under the case you make, it is one part natural, (misogyny is an inherent form of genetically inclined discrimination), and the other part being societal and cultural bastardisation, which many, including my good friend tentative, tell me is inescapable.

I'm not certain Ingenium, if this change you seek is any more plausible than stopping racism, regardless of how distasteful one finds either instance to be.

Thoughtful essay, in any light.

[tentative]

Mas,

It doesn't make much difference the source of discrimination does it? It doesn't make any difference if the discrimination has a long history, is overt or covert, is embedded throughout a culture. When it is obvious that it serves no useful purpose, and probably has never served the whole of humanity, then getting a big white hot spotlight on it seems to be not only warranted, but necessary. We are moving into crunchy times, and it will take all of humanity in equality to see our way through, if that is even possible. Your daughter and my daughter need to be seen by males as an equal, if not a superior. So when do we start? Shall we wait for our grandaughters? Western society has paid dearly for it's making females 'less than'. It's time for males to wake up and perhaps together with our female counterparts, construct a new paradigm where all stand equally. Yes, with differences, but equally.

This is a bit off the topic, but I'm not overly impressed with the male side of our species. And that is too bad because I are one.
One has to ask, if male dominance is such a great thing, why are things so f**ked up? We need all the good thinkers, the good doers we can get. Continuing to look down on "the little woman" isn't good for anyone.

If philosophy can be moved away from its gender bias, then everyone benefits. I'll take that back. Everyone except those who find their maleness threatened by the idea that a mere woman could ever be the equal of their macho maleness.

We need better ways of looking at the world. Females won't have a complete picture any more than males have provided, but perhaps together we might find a new structure that benefits us all. A world view that says half of the species is less than, isn't likely to survive the harsh realities of over-population and the attendant turmoil. I don't know if "the mare is out of the barn", but if she isn't, then we'd better invite her. To do less is to invite our own destruction. We all need testosterone - even the females, but there seems to be a little too much, because things ain't going very well in our male dominated societies.

[Mastriani]

A few points tentative:

1. I am raising my daughter in proper warrior traditions; with physical self-defense and intellectual self-defense, and hopefully preventing her from seeing her femininity as a weakness. Time will tell if my fathering agenda was useful and not damaging. I maintain no expectation, false or actual, that the mentality of males will change, overtly or covertly.

2. I am speaking purely academically here. We can critique things of the past, but only threw a very narrow view. I am not in any manner endorsing a position of "it's in the past, screw it". Pragmatics my friend, I just don't see how viewing previous misogynistic writings in anything other than "let us understand the past, in its own context, as it helps us move forward" to promote our continued understanding.

3. I'm not female, thusly, not directly affected by the condition, so I have nothing more than an academic standpoint to view this from, being completely honest. I'm not indifferent, just unable to "see through her eyes". Apparently another of my aberrances.

4. You'll excuse me if I find your position on this topic a bit ... shifted, in comparison to many other topics we tend to discuss, where your general stance is "stop fighting the world, it won't change". Seems a bit odd to champion in one instance, and not another.

5. As far as male dominance, it is, it has been, it may always be. Genetic inclination is far greater than you and many others give credence to, in any light. But I digress, this isn't my thread.

[tentative]

Hi Mas,

1. Good. I hope your daughter never sees herself or her sisters as less than any male. But there should be no illusions. The societal wall will be there in some form, and the point is that she shouldn't have to deal with the assumed superiority of a male dominated society.

2. Critiqueing the past is a constant and on-going process. The view from 20/20 hindsight is always from a new perspective. I don't see any 'revisionist' talk here, only that it would be useful to begin seeing and teaching that many , much, almost all, of traditional western philosophy is discriminatory toward women. To the extent that it helps provide a "continued understanding", therein lies the potential of fostering philosophy that addresses humans evenhandedly instead of the assumed "Me Tarzan, you Jane" crap.

3. Of course male and female perspective will be different. Good. We need that. Not to go Tao on you or anything, but the sage neither goes out to greet or to see them off. It is in being aware of our pre-conceived notions that is valuable, and it is in this that genuine equality and genuine philosophy becomes possible. Anything that moves us in that direction is beneficial. To say you aren't affected may be a bit premature. Let's wait until your daughter runs into the wall of male prejudice and then see if you are or aren't affected. I know you a little bit, and I'm guessing that you will be "affected".

4. My position hasn't changed at all. There is a difference between seeing the world in new ways (no choice in this) and fostering beneficial changes, and being out in the streets setting up the barricades and handing out revolutionary pamphlets. Championing ideas is part of process and is properly the watercourse way. Fighting with the world implies going against the grain and gains nothing.

5. You're right, genetic inheritance may have bearing, but is another thread. But philosophy isn't genetic, even though it may take such information and use it to create an illusory rationale for social domination.

Beyond this, one could argue that the over-emphasis on the concept of dominance (philosophically) is precisely the factor that has allowed our male-dominated societies to "conquer" nature - with the disasterous results we are living with today. It just might be that we need a change in perspective where we all, male and female, find mutual respect for each other in our differences and create a new vision of cooperation among equals.

[Mastriani]

Beyond this, one could argue that the over-emphasis on the concept of dominance (philosophically) is precisely the factor that has allowed our male-dominated societies to "conquer" nature - with the disasterous results we are living with today. It just might be that we need a change in perspective where we all, male and female, find mutual respect for each other in our differences and create a new vision of cooperation among equals.

I guess I'm not clearly making my point.

In any instance, inclusively absolute, where we are looking "backward into history", we are doing it with contextual bias, rarely if ever openly pronounced. The bias is inclusive of our current era's political positions, social positions, cultural positions. Each one of those categories can be systematically broken down further, until we see the full tree that is attached to any individual perspective, that is attempting to glare back at the annals of everwas, to reach a conclusion.

My take on Machiavelli is heavily contested, you being one of those to highly pronounce my bias in my personal estimation of the historical figure and his words. I accept that, because it is simply fact.

In short, I can't point to "error" in anything Ingenium has stated, but equally, I can point to the commentary being of a particular bias not inclusive of a full historical context. Obviously, we can and will question the past, for authenticity, accuracy, effect, duration, etc.

Xunzian is particularly studied at a large number of these discussions, even more so with classical misogyny. I think I learned from him the fact that the protest, regardless of how well researched and how educated the protestor, as is obvious in the current case, can't change what was, and does less to move us forward.

Perhaps my only point is that as a matter of pure executive function, our only real choice is to keep things in their natural context, appreciate it all as being a different time, and instead of looking back, realise that we live in "what is" and move forward from there.

If there is anything to take from Ingenium's piece here, it is that knowledge of history is highly important, but living in history only compells us to repeat it. But then I reach, as history never repeats.

[tentative]

Mas,

I understand your comments and your position, but I'm not quite ready to accept the idea that history has to repeat itself. Yes, a painful baby step journey, but I have to believe that it is possible for philosophy to look backward and forward at the same time. If you think about it, that is the process anyway. That we might consider females as equals isn't exactly a new concept, but there is much more to be done in every sphere of human activity to find a more positive balance and begin doing philosophy for all, instead of for males and their little "helpmates".

Ingenium, get in here and rescue your thread!

[Ingenium]

LOL, it doesn't appear to me in need of 'rescuing'. I have some to add but the needs of my children and home are calling, as they usually do on weekends. I promise to add a few cents' worth tomorrow.

[Mastriani]

Well, you know me tentative, I'm ALWAYS up for looking like the Supreme Ass ... let's have at it.

How about a little anecdotal comparison, (as obviously differing from an strictly empirical one).

As you know, this particular male pig happens to be victim of servitude under the social contract "marriage".

Just a short comparison, I am quite certain my pigness will be certified quite easily.

Mastriani: interests include weightlifting, martial arts, history, philosophy, cosmology, religion, science, science, science and a number of forms of debate.

Mrs. Mastriani: interests include text messaging, "Big Time" wrestling, cell phoning, sitting, T.V. watching in general.

In my circle of "friends" there are seven. We regularly engage debates in any of the items listed under my interests, including but certainly not limited to boorish male depravity regarding the female.

In Mrs. Mastriani's circle of friends there is relatively forty. Their interests include dope smoking, beer drinking, "Big Time" wrestling, talking about who they don't like, who they hate, who they think the biggest loser is, and generally anything Jerry Springer/Trailer Park/ghetto.

I'm not certain you'll notice the difference, so I'll spell it out for you. There is a ratio apparent 40:7. 40 representing her group, seven representing mine. From her group of 40, all of whom I have had the unenviable and unfortunate misery of meeting, I have never heard one word from any of them that would qualify as anything more than .... well, drooling idiocy and completely moronic and uninteresting.

She has no interest in higher order learning or self-learning, whatever you care to call it. Neither do any of the genetic mishaps she terms as friends, all of whom are female, with the exception of three gay males.

In my group, we sometimes get together just to debate a recent issue, (over a meal of barely cooked dead animal carcass, of course), or some new information available in some medium. Of course, I will admit to certain moments of juvenile male jousting, gas passing, or other forms of metaphor for alpha male positioning.

Now, obviously you are going to say, "Well that's not all women". Of course it's not, but the females that don't fit the bill, sure as hell don't match numerically with the ones who do.

Who's to blame? Can we really point the finger at a specific segment and nail down responsibility? I doubt it. As far as philosophy is concerned, no apologies, I don't see that as realistic. I think females such as Ingenium, Grizzle and Kriswest are far and away, the exception that proves. I agree it's sad. These types of females are far better companions, citizens and lastly, progenerators, than their distant feminine cousins. How many people are actually active in philosophy, ever? A tenth of a percent? A tenth of a tenth of a percent?

The point being, the norm in place is there because of both sexes, and although attempts are being made to level the standard, as always someone will have to lose. I don't see "right or wrong" in the scenario, or even "correct or incorrect" ... that seriously doesn't matter. In any scenario, no matter how PC or how softened the blow, there will be a loser. Yes, females have lost out for an inordinate period of time .... and as the pendulum swings, if it does change, males will have their turn.

In the end, we all discriminate, and humanity exchanges social labels for actual change, satisified to the most base level, that "we have accomplished something" ... something being the operative term.

But, this coming from a typical misogynistic pig, it probably bears little relevance.

[tentative]

Mas,

OK, for just a moment, lets do the anecdotal observations. Yes, I'm aware of your less-than-blissful "situation". You have a lot of company, because too many females, raised in a state of perpetual less-than, give up and accept the role of victim. That they perpetuate and spread the misery is obvious. They are often accompanied by the males who have been raised as less-than, but by God, they are more than any dumb female. You've married the former, and have met many of the latter. Both are the 'losers' in the game. And now for my anecdote: You know that my business is being a greedy pawnbroker, and I have met your wife,her sisters, and her whole damned family many times over. You speak of ratios: As bad as the picture can be painted, females are more responsible, more supportive of family and social ties, than males by a factor of about 10:1. A woman will pawn a cheap wedding set to buy milk and diapers while her loving male partner spends his months wages to buy a new rifle or some other toy. There are obvious exceptions where the reverse is true, but I've watched over twenty years, and the ratio never changes. If males and females have equal intelligence and opportunity to grow, and I believe that they do, then there is something wrong with the social structure or I wouldn't see what I see. There would be no ratio, there would be equality even among the "trailer trash." Incidentally, it is even worse among the so-called educated customers, the ones I call recreational pawners, the people who pawn last week's toy to get money for this week's sparkle-plenty because they can't wait to get their check. The ratio jumps to about 50:1.

All of this is, of course, an aside. But I have watched this pattern at every level of social strata over many years. (yes, I have a three-piece suit and have attended the gala parties)

Let's try to get back to the OP. The misogyny in our society and certainly much of the world, is part of, and reinforced by the best of our collective thought. (I think that is what philosophy is for, maybe not) Rationalize it any way possible and it still falls short of what is desperately needed in today's world. Perhaps misogyny could be not only tolerated but useful in times past, but those times are not only past, but long gone. The luxury of making one half of our species look big by making the other half look small simply cannot be afforded any longer. The difficulties of creating a new direction in philosophy that recognizes females as equals is granted. In many ways, this thread shouldn't have to exist, but it does, and that is both indictment and a call for change. Don't you find it telling that a thread started by a female is being carried by two males? Where the hell are all the female voices? Answer: They've been told that they have no place at the table of philosophy. In your time at ILP, how many females have you encountered that had a voice? I wouldn't need more than the fingers on one hand. I want to see your daughter and all her friends in here, adding the female perspective to the best thinking we can do. If the male dick-waving is the best philosophy we can expect in here, we need to re-think the whole package.

[Mastriani]

You do understand that there are masculine influences, that are masculine because they are both negative and necessary?

How much masculinity do you subjugate, to be an "acceptable male"?

How much animalism do you subjugate, to be an "acceptable male"?

Likely being in a minority of one, no apologies, I like Mastriani the way he is, imperfections, aberrances and all.

Subjugating natural inclinations, pure genetic instinctual drives, what is acceptable?

Think about it before you go off on a rant.

Where does this leave the female?
What does she have to look forward to in mate?
What does she have to look forward to in a protector? (I know it's a highly unpopular position to hold, but the world is growing again "more violent", not less)
What kind of a companion is she going to have, if the male is so subjugated, that inherently it creates social lesbianism?
What of the children? I realise, again, it is a woefully intolerable assertion, but for both the male and female child, socially strong parents with weak, (subjugated), personality traits, leads to weak offspring. (How many studies do you want to see that show that the daughter of an archetype male provides her with the best chance of success and the converse proves to be the antithesis ... they're out there, yes, they are there.)

Perhaps instead of blaming philosophy for the condition, we should look at taking personal responsibility and accountability for the manner in which we behave in the time that we live ... which is inclusive of not only the male, but the female.

In former ages, I have no doubt you are correct that any studious male would have likely been inexorably swayed by an errant philosopher with a singular agenda ideology. But today, we are surrounded with social leveling and standardising behavioral attempts for "making all equal".

Again, not a popular position to maintain, but genetically speaking, "All humans are NOT created equal". So perhaps, "philosophy" isn't the problem, maybe in a one to one ratio, we are the problem, all of us, and what was, was; and what is and what we feel should be, is a matter of personal character, not the books of men long dead.

[/exit mindless_pig_diatribe.exe]

[tentative]

Mas,

I wouldn't change you for the world as far as your "maleness" goes. I like my male attributes as well. There are things I do that many females would find difficult. But our maleness or femaleness isn't what is at issue. We can start a thread on our differences, and that might be fun, but this thread as I am reading it, isn't about our biological differences and how that plays out in a social setting, but about historical assigning of the less-than label to half our species. That is the real issue, and the question is, can philosophy be a part of creating a world view where male and female differences are recognized as complimentary parts of a whole species? It is in getting away from the superior-inferior head that needs to be addressed. I recognize and admire your maleness, just as I recognize and admire several females who have graced this discussion board. Are there differences between us? Damnbethcha, but I'm not, and I don't see anyone as being superior or inferior simply because they are male ot female.

I'm not going to say any more until there is some female input. I'm starting to feel ridiculous.

[Mastriani]

"Cleave to the feminine, but keep to the masculine."

You aren't slick, but nice try.

This particular cosmological statement is a matter of the inescapable wu li of life and living. It shows that in nature the demand for balance must be equal shares, and that anything counter to that balance, through willful disregard or blind ignorance, cannot, be rectified, or aid in rectifiying anything else, it is counter productive to the process of life.

Strangely this bit of colloquial wisdom was written by .... __________.

In proper fashion simplified, it simply means applying either force, (masculine), or deference, (feminine), as the situation requires to manifest proper balance.

This is all understood in the light that any "thing, of itself so", can no more change its nature, than one could pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

In Taoist philosophical tradition, prevalent even today, male and female are equally necessary in non-arbitrary fashion, but always kept distinctly separate. Some would say that it shows a lack of equality, in that although they say equal, the perspective is that male and female work "from their own levels".

Is that misogynistic?

[tentative]

Mas asks,

Is that misogynistic?

No. Because Tao recognizes differences, but would never give preference of one over the other. Deference is paramount. Interestingly, the sense is more androgeny, is it not? Chp 10 asks, "With nature's gates swinging open and closed, are you able to remain the female?" And in Chp 28 we learn, "Know the male yet safeguard the female and be a river gorge to the world, As a river gorge to the world, you will not lose your real potency and not losing your real potency, you return to the state of a newborn babe."

Note that this is an appeal to both the male and female in the individual. Tao seems to ask deference for whatever deference calls for, male or female. In this sense, I find no "levels", just recognition of differences.