EducationWomen’s education, its role in definingtheir social status and its impact on societyOne dualism thatmarks out Westernthought and carries alot of significance, isdefinitely that of maleand female. The rolesof men and women,and collaterally ofeducation, are adirect concern tomany contributorsto Western thoughtand implied in that ofmany thinkers of non-Western origin.While the great philosophers questionedcertain assumptions central to the intellectualedifice of their societies, they affirmed others.Most of these thinkers being male, therelationship between the sexes as they defineit is often a hierarchical one, either reflectingtheir explicit position or implying that it isproper for men to dominate women.Given the fact that Hellenistic thought formsan important source of classical Islamic as wellas European philosophy and that Indian andChinese philosophers equally endorse a clearand strongly hierarchical distinction betweenmale and female with regard to their socialroles and the education geared to preparethem for these, the following short summarywill focus on the teachings of some influentialHellenic and European thinkers representativeof what has been (or lies at the root of) therecent century’s mainstream philosophy.Women are inferior to menin all ways, including intellectSocrates, to begin with, on behalf of Platodeclares that females will be reared and trainedalongside males, receiving the same educationand taking on the same political roles, thoughhe acknowledges that in many respects menand women have different natures. Platoadvocates the equal education of womenin all academic disciplines, but it would beinaccurate to think that Plato believed in themodern notion of equality between the sexes.Rather, he states that women are inferior tomen in all ways, including intellect. He believedthat within each class (of which, in his conceptof an optimally organised society ruled by thephilosophers, i.e. the [spiritually] learned, theexperts, as laid down in his “Republic”, therewould be three in all) the women are inferiorto the men. So, for instance, guardian women(representing the highest class in the societyadvocated by him) would be superior to menof the two other, lower classes, but inferior tomost men of their own class.Women are unfinished menAristotle believed that women are incompletecompared to men and that woman’s characterand disposition was in a way that of an«unfinished man». Women, he postulates,are weaker both physically and mentally,and should therefore resign themselves to apassive role allowing the man to dominate.One argument Aristotle used to support thisclaim was the idea that during reproduction,«woman is passive and receptive, while manis active and productive». On the groundsof this reasoning, Aristotle believed that thechild inherits only the male characteristics andthe woman is merely the soil, while the maleis the sower, receiving and bringing forth the
seed. Aristotle believed that reproductivefunctions were a determining cause in thestatus of one’s life, and in turn believed men tobe superior and women to be inferior, due totheir biological roles with regard to conceptionand reproduction. This also led him to believethat men were more intelligent and capableof learning than women. Although he heldthe belief that men were thus inherentlymore knowledgeable than women, hedid feel that women should be educated.Yet, since he believed that men were bybiological disposition able to learn and retainmore information than women, he deniedthat women should have the same type ofeducation.Women’s highest concernshould be her appearanceThe 19th and early 20th century’s thought,on which Freud with his psychoanalyticalschool and Nietzsche with his radical, as it were‘messianic’, renewal of Western philosophyhad a formative impact, remains, as did these,largely wedded to traditional roles for women,and the two genders in general, that hadpersisted since the times of the ancient Greeks.Like those of their predecessors, however,their arguments provide new twists on orjustifications for the old stereotypes.Freud argues that the distinction betweenmasculine and feminine is not simplypsychological or social but has biologicalroots that can be traced back to the maleand female sex-cells. He asserts that duringconception the male cell is active whilst thefemale waits passively. This distinction carrieswith it important implications. Apart fromthe unique prenatally determined biologicalbasis of gender identity implied in this, thesignificance of this thesis lies in the fact thatit would provide a scientific justification ofthe contrasting social roles allotted to the twogenders, with men and women being destinedto assume the traditional roles of head of thefamily and wife and mother, respectively.Nietzsche argues against efforts to provideequal education for, and otherwise recognizeand create more rights for, women. He claimsthat belief in equality between the sexes isa result of the triumph of slave morality andthat making women more self-reliant is oneof the “worst developments in the generaluglification of Europe”. Women have steadilylost influence since the French Revolutionbecause they have retreated from their properroles and functions in society. Men should betrained to be warriors, while women shouldbe trained to be a kind of recreation for thesesame warriors, he argues. Nietzsche continuesby saying that the woman’s highest concernshould be her appearance; she should be silentwhen it comes to politics, and should generallybe regarded as man’s property, as it were.Overall, he rails against the emancipation andeducation of women as contrary to their natureand cautions them not to imitate men in anyway.Women’s disqualification forcitizenship...There are, we are told, natural and irreversiblegender differences which preclude womenfrom any active participation as citizens. This isRousseau arguing. These differences originatefrom the women’s subordinate status in thefamily, which is mirrored by their (the women’s)disqualification for citizenship. This is becausetheir thinking, according to Rousseau, is ofpractical nature, useful in domestic situationsbut lacking the kind of judgement necessaryfor public activity. Rousseau, like all the otherthinkers discussed here, draws a parallelbetween the ‘natural’ and social roles andeducation. In his book Emile, Emile, the man,is taught to be the breadwinner and preparedfor citizenship while Sophie, the woman, is tolearn how to be a good wife and mother.Women act like children fora reasonIn her book A Vindication of the Rights ofWomen, Mary Wollstonecraft argues againstthe proposition that women are naturallyemotional and intellectually inferior. Hercontention is that the lack of intellectualdevelopment in women is due to thedifferences in educational opportunitiesbetween the two sexes. While men receive anintellectual, academic education, women areleft to be educated by society, which results inthe cultivation of emotional and feminine traits.For Wollstonecraft, this ‘natural disposition’ ofwomen is artificial; a consequence of the rolessociety lays down for them. Women are fondof dress and gossip, are helpless, emotional,and weak, and act like children not because itis their nature but because they are educatedor trained to be this way. The artificiality ofgender-typical behaviour patterns is stronglycorroborated by the anthropological studiesof Margaret Mead, whose influential (field)research work established the absence ofgender-typical temperament and dispositionin societies were temperament and dispositionare not defined by gender, as well as by Marx’spioneering social and economic studies.Moreover, it is borne out, to a certain extend,by Freud himself, who goes on to stress theinfluence of social customs in the formation ofgender identity and cautions against biologicaldeterminism, pointing out as well that the“preference [for] passive aims”, by which hecharacterises the female psyche, is distinctfrom passivity.Women as alluring objectswho pay homage to menThough conceding that men may be physicallystronger by nature [albeit this concept in itselfremains contestable], Wollstonecraft assertsthat men are not content with this but insteadseek to make women inferior in other ways andrender them alluring objects who pay homageto men. Women, traditionally, have beenplaced so low in society that Wollstonecraftsees them as having sunk below the levelof rational creatures. Out of ignorance andlack of purpose then, women are attractedto the attention of men and fall for it, as it isthis approving attention that validates themas social beings and provides them with anidentity, as it were.Consequently, society has adopted a mistakennotion of what female excellence is. Shepostulates that women should be educatedto be companions for men because if not,no progress toward virtue and knowledgecan be made. Women should have the sameeducation because “truth is common to all”and all, including women, have the capacity toreason -to apply reason in a constructive andeffective manner- if given proper education.“Mistaken education, a narrow uncultivatedmind, and many sexual prejudices, tend tomake women more constant than men” thusproducing women’s social personality.The solution to these flaws, she concludes, isto extend the same educational opportunitiesto women as are given to men. Furthermore,instruction should be co-educational, withrich and poor being educated together. ForWollstonecraft, to strengthen the femalemind by enlarging it is to end women’s blindobedience to male domination and living forpleasure. The best education, then, is one thatfosters understanding, strengthens the bodyand forms the heart.By Daniela Mifsud
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