have already said. Now dogs are not divided into hes and shes--we do not
take the masculine gender out to hunt and leave the females at home to look
after their puppies. They have the same employments--the only difference
between them is that the one sex is stronger and the other weaker. But if
women are to have the same employments as men, they must have the same
education--they must be taught music and gymnastics, and the art of war. I
know that a great joke will be made of their riding on horseback and
carrying weapons; the sight of the naked old wrinkled women showing their
agility in the palaestra will certainly not be a vision of beauty, and may
be expected to become a famous jest. But we must not mind the wits; there
was a time when they might have laughed at our present gymnastics. All is
habit: people have at last found out that the exposure is better than the
concealment of the person, and now they laugh no more. Evil only should be
the subject of ridicule.

The first question is, whether women are able either wholly or partially to
share in the employments of men. And here we may be charged with
inconsistency in making the proposal at all. For we started originally
with the division of labour; and the diversity of employments was based on
the difference of natures. But is there no difference between men and
women? Nay, are they not wholly different? THERE was the difficulty,
Glaucon, which made me unwilling to speak of family relations. However,
when a man is out of his depth, whether in a pool or in an ocean, he can
only swim for his life; and we must try to find a way of escape, if we can.

The argument is, that different natures have different uses, and the
natures of men and women are said to differ. But this is only a verbal
opposition. We do not consider that the difference may be purely nominal
and accidental; for example, a bald man and a hairy man are opposed in a
single point of view, but you cannot infer that because a bald man is a