Prompt #2

Elizabeth Piatt

Mrs. Wilhelmus

AP English Language

26 July 2013

Gender Rights

            Aristotle was known as Europe’s first great biologist. Many people agreed with his theories about animals, but not as many agreed with his views on women. Aristotle believed that a woman is an “unfinished man” and all of a child's characteristics come from its father. I was shocked when I read Aristotle’s views on women, and I do not agree with him.

            Plato provided more admirable answers to questions about gender. Plato said that women should not be the only ones to take care of children and the housekeeping. They also needed an education and other responsibilities. He believed that women have “exactly the same powers of reasoning as men” (pg 92). He also believed that an ideal state needs women just as much as it needs men. This shows that in Plato’s ideal state, men and women had equal rights and freedoms.

            I believe that Gaarder made a vast majority of the authorities in the novel men to emphasize how many philosophers viewed men above women. When Plato and Aristotle were alive, there were more men authorities than women authorities. Gaarder made the authorities in the novel male as a reference to how genders were viewed in the past.