There is nothing new under the sun

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun

Ecclesiastes 1:9

One of my main interests in sociological study and research is women and their choices in life course. At the current age, the equality is a norm, one of most wanted qualities in women's pursuing, yet, the true equality is never fully fulfilled.

What is equality anyway? the same opportunity to be raised and educated as the men? the same occupational choices and requirements? the same rewarding and acknowledgment mechanism?

I found recently in the writing of Plato "The Republic", such a topic was already discussed in detail as his time. That makes me somewhat hesitate to pursue my own research, as you will soon see why:

Quote from "The Republic" Chapter six

"Ought female watchdogs to perform the same duties as male, and watch and hunt and so on with them? or ought they to stay at home on the grounds that the bearing and rearing of their puppies incapacitate them from other duties, so that the whole burden of the care of the flocks falls on the males?"

"If we are going to use men and women for the same purpose, we must teach them the same things we educated the men both physically and intellectually, we shall have to d the same for women, and train for war as well, and treat them in the same way"

"I dare say, that their novelty would make many of our proposals seem ridiculous if they were put into practices"

"Won't the most ridiculous thing of all be to see the women taking exercise naked with the men in the gymnasium? it won't only be the young women, there will be old women too, just as there are old men who go on with their exercise when they are wrinkled and ugly to look at."

"still, now we've launched our women on this career we must not be afraid of the clever jokes that are bound to be made about all the charges involved about their physical training and education, and above all them being trained to carry arms and ride."

"So have started off, we must go on to legislate for the real difficulties....."

"The first thing we have to decide is whether these proposals are feasible or not, For, whether it is asked in joke or in earnest, we must admit the question. Is the female of the human species capable of taking part in all the occupation of the male, or in none, or in some only? And in some, is military service one of them?"

"Isn't there a very great nature difference between men and women?(if we admit, our imaginary critic will say),then aren't you making a mistaken and contradicting yourselves, when you go on to say that men and women should follow the same occupation, in spite of the great natural difference between them?"

"That is why I(Socrates)was so unwilling to start legislating about the possession of wives and rearing of children."...

"But you've got to swim whether you're thrown into a swimming bath or into the middle of the sea, so we must try and keep our heads above waters in this argument, and swim on in the hope of being rescued by Arion's dolphin or some other miracle."

(I did not know what my "ambition" leads me to....

"We admit that different natures needs different kinds of occupation, and the men and women have different natures; and yet we go on to give the same occupation to these admittedly different nature."

Plato stopped here to discuss the art of argument:

"I think a lot of critics fall quite unconsciously into a confusion between scoring points in debate and arguing seriously. They fail to make the distinctions necessary for the discussion of a subject, and so get side-tracked into purely verbal contradictions."

"We are sticking obstinately to the verbal debating point that different natures should not be given the same occupations; but we haven't considered what we mean by natures being the same or different, and what out intention was when we laid down the principle that different natures should have different jobs, similar natures similar jobs."

"We were not assuming that natures are the same or different in an unqualified sense, but only with reference to their suitability for same or different kinds of employment. Then if men or women as a class appear to be qualified for different occupations, we shall assign them different occupation accordingly; but if the only difference apparent between them is that the female bears and the male begets, we shall not admit that this is a difference relevant for our purpose, but shall still maintain that our male and female guardians ought to follow the same occupations."

"Then let us proceed to ask our opponent to tell us for what professions or occupations in society men and women are differently suited by nature."

"So shall we ask him to follow us and see if we can show him convincingly that there is no social function peculiar to woman? then let us ask him to answer this question. When you say a man has a natural ability for a subject, don't you mean that he learns it easily and can pick it up himself after a little instruction; whether a man who has no natural ability learns with difficulty...Aren't these the sort of criteria by which you distinguish natural ability?"

"Then is there anything men do at which they aren't far better in all these respects than women? We need not waste time over exceptions like weaving and cooking, at which women are thought to be experts, and get badly laughed at if men do them better."

"There is therefore no function in society which is peculiar to woman as woman or man as man; natural abilities are similarly distributed in each sex, and it is natural for women to share all occupations with men, thought in all women will be the weaker partners.

"Are we therefore to confine all occupations to men only?"

"Obviously we can't, for we are agreed that one woman may have a natural ability for medicine or music, another not. Then may a woman not be philosophic or unphilosophic, high-spirited or spiritless?"

"Then there will also be some women fitted to be Guardians: for these qualities, were those for which we picked men Guardians"

"So men and women have the same natural capacity for Guardianship, save in so far as woman is the weaker of the two."
........

from above, we seem to see that Plato is promoting the equal occupation for both man and women, however as you see from the next post, the consequence of this arrangement is quite shocking