The foundation of Western philosophy is misogynous and colonialistic. And this is the world we are living in today through the invasion and dominance of Christianity and colonization. Modern political structures, societal norms, science, and technology are all under this framework. It is the mainstream, whereas Indigenous cultures and values have all been diminished and sidelined, mostly annihilated and dismantled.
Don't ask me why am I, respect stoicism from a distance, only keen to read Nietzsche. There will be too much to unlearn if I ever get too close. Even though our lives are thoroughly soaked in their ideologies since birth, through the long-lasting effect of colonization and the spread of Christianity.
Aristotle was firmly convinced that a woman was, in fact, an incomplete or mutilated man. He saw the male as the ultimate realization of humanity and the female as necessarily inferior.
Aristotle believed women were inferior to men. For example, in his work Politics (1254b13–14), Aristotle states, "As regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject." In Politics 1.12 he wrote, "The slave is wholly lacking the deliberative element; the female has it but it lacks authority; the child has it but it is incomplete".
Cynthia Freeland wrote: "Aristotle says that the courage of a man lies in commanding, a woman's lies in obeying; that 'matter yearns for form, as the female for the male and the ugly for the beautiful'; that women have fewer teeth than men; that a female is an incomplete male or 'as it were, a deformity'."
Aristotle believed that men and women naturally differed both physically and mentally. He claimed that women are "more mischievous, less simple, more impulsive... more compassionate... more easily moved to tears... more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike... more prone to despondency and less hopeful... more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, of more retentive memory [and]... also more wakeful; more shrinking [and] more difficult to rouse to action" than men.
He wrote that only fair-skinned women, not darker-skinned women, had a sexual discharge and climaxed. He also believed this discharge could be increased by eating of pungent foods. Aristotle thought a woman's sexual discharge was akin to that of an infertile or amputated male. He concluded that both sexes contributed to the material of generation, but that the female's contribution was in her discharge (as in a male's) rather than within the ovary.
Aristotle explains how and why the association between man and woman takes on a hierarchical character by commenting on male rule over 'barbarians', or non-Greeks. " By nature, the female has been distinguished from the slave. For nature makes nothing in the manner that the coppersmiths make the Delphic knife – that is, frugally – but, rather, it makes each thing for one purpose. For each thing would do its work most nobly if it had one task rather than many. Among the barbarians the female and the slave have the same status. This is because there are no natural rulers among them but, rather, the association among them is between male and female slave. On account of this, the poets say that 'it is fitting that Greeks rule barbarians', as the barbarian and the slave are by nature the same."
While Aristotle reduced women's roles in society, and promoted the idea that women should receive less food and nourishment than males, he also criticised the results: a woman, he thought, was then more compassionate, more opinionated, more apt to scold and to strike. He stated that women are more prone to despondency, more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of having a better memory.
Plato in Timaeus (90e) claims that men who were cowards and were lazy throughout their life shall be reborn as women and in the Laws(781b), he offers his reasons why women should be educated: "Because you neglected this sex, you gradually lost control of a great many things which would be in a far better state today if they had been regulated by law. A woman's natural potential for virtue is inferior to a man's, so she's proportionately a greater danger, perhaps even twice as great." Plato further establishes his opinion on the inferiority of women's "natural potential" by claiming in Republic (455d) that "Women share by nature in every way of life just as men do, but in all of them women are weaker than men."
Plato appears to use the term "womanish" or "female-like" as an derogatory term implying inferiority and emotional instability, as this is clear from Republic (469d and 605e), amongst others.
Plato discusses this matter with more detail in Timaeus, where he states that men have a superior soul to women (42a): "Humans have a twofold nature, the superior kind should be such as would from then on be called 'man'. He added, once again, that men who led bad lives shall be reborn as women (42b): "And if a person lived a good life throughout the due course of his time, he would at the end return to his dwelling place in his companion star, to live a life of happiness that agreed with his character. But if he failed in this, he would be born a second time, now as a woman."
The influence of Aristotelian biology on Christian theology can hardly be underestimated. Aristotle’s biology gave “scientific expression” to the basic patriarchal assumption that the male is the normative and representative expression of the human species and the female is not only secondary and auxiliary to the male but lacks full human status in physical strength, moral self control, and mental capacity. The lesser “nature” thus confirms the female’s subjugation to the male as her “natural” place in the universe. (1985:65)
Yen (2003:1) argues that Plato’s theory on the creation of humankind, where souls were originally implanted in male bodies and given volition, sensation and emotion, paved the way for gender inequality. For Kasubhai (1996:37, 47), the placement of the creation of women in concurrence with the creation of birds, mammals, reptiles and fish is an indication of Plato’s negative views on women.
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