Madison Mooney

AP English Lang

Mrs. Wilhelmus

2 August, 2013

Prompt #2

            As a girl myself, I personally think Aristotle's views on his opposite gender were just distasteful and arrogant. A man of his intelligence should have been able to accept that women were just as useful in the world as men were, no matter what society thought. Usually during the times that men believed women were the inferior gender, they at least thought women were important because of their ability to rear children. Aristotle did not even recognize that. Which, to me, is the worst of his views. The belief that women had hardly nothing to do with childbirth is truly sickening.

            In my opinion I believe that Plato had the most admirable views on the opposite sex. The fact that he believed women had the potential to have the same reasoning skills as men shows that his views were a lot more open than the other philosophers. Even though I think Plato has the best views on the opposite sex, I do believe that it is a bit sexist of him to think women would need to be exempt from child rearing and housekeeping in order to receive the same training as men.

            It is sad to me that a vast majority of the authorities in this novel are men. But it is the world they lived in. This was a time when men were considered superior and women were supposed to just take care of the house and the children. Even though women have always had the exact same ability to think that men have, women were never thought of as smart or intelligent. With that being said, women were not really given the chance or opportunity to be a great philosopher.