Talk:Aristotle's views on women

One sided. Request for more primary sources

The article is rather one-sided. I have tried to improve this by correcting a section (which stated certain things directly contradicted by Aristotle himself), and filling in some details of one of Aristotle's own arguments. -- Also, the subsection "Women belong in the home" is somewhat suspicious. Doubts arise from the choice of the verb "control", and above all by "Greek constitutional law", i.e., something that did not exist. During Aristotle's lifetime, there was no single "Greek" constitution, as Aristotle himself observes in his Politics (Book 7, Ch. 7), and certainly not a law thereof. Anyway, the references to Aristotle's own works would be helpful supplements (at least) to the scholarship, since this article is more-so Aristotle's views. AnotherRho (talk) 08:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the improvements.hgilbert (talk) 14:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

This page is the first result that comes up when you google "was Aristotle sexist" and I believe it serves as confirmation bias and reads like an opinion piece ("What Wikipedia Is Not" guideline). I can see that this is an old article that hasn't changed much but it is too biased and one-sided to have such a wide reach and it is grossly irresponsible to keep it this way. I would like to contribute but am not enough of an expert on the topic to dispute the existing claims confidently. I would appreciate any assistance on what the correct thing to do in such cases is. If there is no interest in this topic anymore, I would at least request that this talk section stay up for future visitors who may see and gain something of value from it.

There is value in Sophia M. Connell's writing on this exact topic here:

I would not deny that Aristotle is sexist and he is even at times misogynist, but what I challenge is the presence of any systemic theory of female inferiority in his writing. Indeed, when you scrutinize his work rather than picking out juicy quotes, there is very little evidence for this. Indeed, he seems to have different things to say in different places and some of these are in tension. On the more positive side, he says that female animals are in general cleverer and have better memories than male animals (HA VIII(IX).1, 608a25-28, 608b10), that females who care for young are practically wise (phronimos) (HA VIII(IX).5), that women can and should be virtuous and that women have significant medical knowledge (HA IX(VII))

As you can see, one can pluck out quotes to support the other camp's view just as well. Therefore, it is not hard to spot the author's bias in beginning the first section with "Aristotle believed women were inferior to men" when there are article quotes such as "[women] are more difficult to rouse to action than men" when Aristotle also continues with "they are less prone to anger and violence. As such, they will be better rulers and more virtuous". There are only negative citations from the Politics but no mention of how Aristotle often went against the conventional views of the time and pushed for men to listen to their wives in the Politics, for example. How many views can be truly attributed as Aristotle's inferiority theory rather than them being the cultural views of a time when wives were seen as a type of slave?

I would also like to note that I am not making an apologetic argument or siding against any feminist views on Aristotle. This quote says it best:

It is often not a good idea to simplify the history of ideas in order to fit a modern agenda. If it did some good to vilify Aristotle, then maybe this was a necessary moment in the feminist dialectic with an intellectual tradition that was certainly largely pernicious to women. But getting things wrong and fundamentally wrong about philosophers’ views does not serve anyone’s interest and seriously undermines the credibility of those who do this. It takes away the richness of our intellectual traditions.

Thanks. Hope I formatted this correctly Herbconformist (talk) 14:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

References

Lot is a singular noun here

The "lot of women" means the fate or situation of women; it is a singular noun. Someone keeps changing the verb to a plural form. This is grammatically incorrect. hgilbert (talk) 23:27, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Coatrack

This article has become something of a Coatrack. It claims to be "Aristotle's Views on Women", but is more like an Aristotle-piñata in the service of something else. A few examples illustrate this problem well:

• "Aristotle stated that women were not human." -- The citation references a scholarly book. Where does Aristotle say it? Nowhere, because he implies the opposite constantly (according to Aristotle: anthropos [human] is the animal having speech/reason [logos], but women have logos; non-humans cannot have friends in any strict sense, but women can have friends, and the friendship between husband and wife is (or should be) "aristocratic" i.e. between equals in virtue. And so on). The claim is so preposterous as to hardly conceal its villainous intention.

• Generally the section, "Women held to be less emotional than men", misrepresents his plain words or cites a poor source. Even the heading is incorrect: Aristotle (in History of Animals Bk. 9.1) is saying that humans in general display much more pronounced character traits and "emotions" than do the rest of the animals. His examples of such seem all to be of stronger/more pronounced traits (including being more apt to learn) found in women as compared to men. How the reader does not see this as meaning that women are the more "naturally developed" humans, prior to education, is beyond me.

• "Aristotle nevertheless thought that women should not leave the female quarters of the house, and by his death the health of women in Athens had deteriorated, etc." -- The first part (about never leaving) is unsupported and false; and the (alleged) condition of Athens is unsupported and entirely irrelevant: was Aristotle the sovereign of Athens, or the archon of health? Never. Such lines are obviously meant to associate with him things which everyone thinks of as bad, in order to color him with those evils.

• "This can now be interpreted as ironic since Aristotle denied women free speech and access to proper education." -- Ignoring other problems, the "now" shows clearly that what were once summaries of what Aristotle in fact says, have been altered and ammended in order to better serve the function of a "rack" upon which to hang a one-sided view. It is also unsupported and incorrect (the Politics, e.g., is peppered with remarks on the necessity of educating women to excellence).

• "Aristotle viewed women in terms of homo-erotic sexuality" (and again, later in the article). -- That this is an attitude of a certain branch of feminism, and not a plain fact of "Aristotle's views", is even stated at the end of the article ("Aristotle is considered by many contemporary feminist critics to have been a homo-erotic misogynist"). Which plain-as-day shows that "Aristotle" is being used in the article as a rack upon which to hang other, one-sided views.

Doubtless, many of Aristotle's views on women differ from those customary today (how many people today regard it as best that women be educated in martial and other bodily virtues just as men, which means exercising in a liberal manner [Pol. 7.16], i.e. naked and without shame?), but the current article destroys its ability to give any encyclopedic assistance to a reader interested in this subject. --AnotherRho (talk) 21:18, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

You raise some legitimate points, and I'd encourage you to attempt to improve the article. Wareh (talk) 02:41, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

"Accusing" of having better memory?

The article states that "He accused women of being more prone to despondency, more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of having a better memory."

Was he really "accusing" women of having better memory? This implies that memory is something negative. If Aristoteles ever said that having memory is negative, then this should be explained. Joreberg (talk) 19:15, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done The section (and article) are still rough. Feel free to touch the "edit" tab yourself, as there's no guarantee that anyone else will do more than you can to improve things! Wareh (talk) 19:42, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I think he might have meant they have the tendency to hold a grudge for long, they remember other people's misconducts for long. If you find the Greek word I can tell you exactly what he meant since I am a native Greek speaker. Eanorel (talk) 14:18, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Why does this article exist?

Why is there an article on Aristotle's views on women but not his views on food or clothing? Do we need to have an article dedicated to a famous person's views on X subject? (How do we choose the subjects?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.71.89.30 (talk) 22:20, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Generally, any topic which is notable and does not violate the "What Wikipedia Is Not" guideline is deemed to merit its own article. Any topic with significant coverage in multiple reliable sources independent of the subject is notable. Plenty of academic articles have been written about Aristotle's views on women, therefore it is notable and potentially worthy of its own article. If Aristotle's views on food were likewise the subject of dozens of academic articles, they might also be worthy of an article in their own right, but as far as I can tell they are not. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:07, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Actually it does matter when Aristotle's bias concerning women affects his scientific theories. E.g. when it came to bee apiculture, Aristotle did not believe in a queen bee. Rather he believed in a King bee and that that workers were male, like soldiers. This is mentioned in the MacTutor archive article by T.C. Scott and P. Marketos entitled On the Origin of the Fibonacci sequence. Aristotle's false notion persisted into the middle-ages.TonyMath (talk) 05:28, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

If you consider only the fact that Aristotle's views on women influenced religion, philosophy, education, science, women's social roles, women's history, medicine and politics in the West for centuries, it becomes clear it is a very important matter to discuss. (For more see the Greek article on Aristoltle's views on women, in particular the influence section at the bottom of the page).Eanorel (talk) 14:23, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Aristotle's Views on Women Evaluation

Which article are you evaluating? Aristotle's views on women.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate? The article title sounded hilarious so I had to look at it.

Evaluate the article The article opening simply restates the title and does not give me a good idea as to what I am about to read. Otherwise, the article seems to be well written, well cited, well quoted, and has relatively little bias. However, one of the sources has been deemed unverifiable and should thus be changed. On the section with this unverified source, the author seems to insert some of his own thoughts saying that some of Aristotle's theories make some sense, which should be omitted so as to remain as unbiased as possible. Otherwise, the article is mostly without issue.--HervGerv (talk) 05:20, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Redirecting article per WP:SOAPBOX

Accusing a 2400 year old philosopher of sexism? blaming Aristotle for every other philosopher who was ever sexist? this seems to me a clear violation of WP:NPOV and WP:SOAPBOX. I've redirected the article to the main aristotle one. - car chasm (talk) 05:58, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I've restored the article, retaining the parts of the article that are cited from reliable sources and removing all of the original research. Having reviewed the sources, it looks like there is an article to be written here, largely on how Aristotle saw societal hierarchies, and how he derived explanations that accorded with natural theories he took from earlier philosophers. there does appear to be WP:SIGCOV in reliable sources, without the need to consult individual one-off articles in academic journals for subjects unrelated to the History of Philosophy or Classics. WP:NPOV is a content policy even if sometimes sources do not follow it, so we cannot just lift quotes from activist sources and put them in the article. - car chasm (talk) 21:56, 26 January 2023 (UTC)