Gender, Education, and Enlightened Politics in Plato’s Laws

Plato’s treatments of women are perplexing because they seem to justify both gender equality and female subordination. Faced with evidence of both, scholars typically ask whether Plato promotes gender equality or patriarchy rather than what a particular treatment of women means in the dialogue to which it belongs. This article seeks to clarify Plato’s treatment of women by focusing on women’s education in the Laws and analyzing it in the context of his Athenian Stranger’s attempt at rational political reform. It argues that in exploring the differences between men and women, Plato shows them to be ones of degree rather than kind and identifies a common human weakness shared by both genders that is the greatest obstacle to his reform. This approach reveals a profound examination of a human problem and an instructive account of the challenges that accompany the quest for gender equality.