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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

Socrates

high opinion of women

 

 

Socrates: 469 BC - 399 BC

 

from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/

Socrates seemed to have a higher opinion of women than most of his companions had, speaking of “men and women,” “priests and priestesses,” likening his work to midwifery, and naming foreign women as his teachers: Socrates claimed to have learned rhetoric from Aspasia of Miletus, the de facto spouse of Pericles (Plato, Menexenus); and to have learned erotics from the priestess Diotima of Mantinea (Plato, Symposium). Socrates was unconventional in a related respect. Athenian citizen males of the upper social classes did not marry until they were at least thirty, and Athenian females were poorly educated and kept sequestered until puberty, when they were given in marriage by their fathers. 

 

 

 

Editor's last word:

As discussed elsewhere, women in the ancient world, and even until recently, were considered to be second-class and innately inferior to men.

This is why Jesus’ men were shocked to learn that he had actually had a conversation with the woman at the well (John 4).