Diana H. Coole (Essay Date 1988)

SOURCE: Coole, Diana H. "The Origin of Western Thought and the Birth of Misogyny." In Women in Political Theory: From Ancient Misogyny to Contemporary Feminism, pp. 10-28. Brighton, Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books, 1988.

In the following excerpt, Coole probes the sources of Western misogyny in the philosophy, literature, and social structure of classical Greece.

Western political philosophy first flourished in Athens, in the fourth century B.C.; it is the names of Plato and Aristotle that are most often associated with these origins. Their concern with arrangements for a just and stable state involved more than constitutional organization, however. Questions regarding the nature of virtue and the good life were meshed with broader inquiries regarding the status of knowledge; birth and death; the order of the universe. Such fundamental questions involved speculations about woman's place in the...