Cyril Udebunu

Women's Role in Plato's Political Theory: Plato's Deconstruction of the Political Sphere Cyril Udebunu

One of the veritable problems of mankind which for ages has remained intractable is the woman-question -the nature and place of women in the design of Being, the nature of femininity and her role in the city-state. Plato came in as the first philosopher to unseat the Greek's settled ideas and custom against women which saw them in demeaning and gruesome ways and consequently eliminated them in block from any form of public roles. For, not only lacking the intelligence for the conduct of their own lives, they constitute a serious threat to the political world. The book examines Plato's audacious intervention in favor of women but found out his errors with regard to dualism as the condition for the failure of his revolution. It tried to transcend this error by showing how dichotomy of gender in socio-political concerns could be overcome. As the most detailed study on women in Plato's political thought, the book will be of special interest to students of political science, gender studies and people concerned with social policies.