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2) "Aristotle's philosophy is strikingly different, in its aim and in its entire tone, from that of Plato. Whereas Plato, throughout the dialogues, is essentially critical, radically questioning the most sacredly held conventions of the world around him. Aristotle set out to acquire knowledge of the way the world is, and, moreover, to explain why it is the way it is." page 73
3) "Unlike Plato, he does not argue, in dealing with ethics any more than with biology, that the world should be different from the way it is, but starts from a basic belief that the status quo in both the natural and the social realm is the best way for things to be.
This conservative approach, however, is not simply assumed dogmatically, but has its own rationale. Things are the way they are, Aristotle argues, because of the function each of them performs, and their survival is proof that they perform their functions well." page 74
4) "In Rousseau's writings about women, we can clearly discern his consciousness that it was woman who aroused in him that sexuality which produced in him feelings of both fear and guilt, and who by her ability to arouse him endangered his independence and self-sufficiency. Since she is seen, in this sphere, as unlimitedly powerful, the conclusion drawn is that woman must be thoroughly subjugated in other spheres if even a balance of power, let alone man's superiority, is to be maintained. Since she is depicted as the source of sin and evil, her subjection is seen as her justified desert, and consequently Rousseau had his own version of God's cursing Eve with the pains of childbirth." page 100
5) "On the other hand, however, the male has been assigned the only work Rousseau considers to be productive of property, and it is made very clear that the family goods belong only to the father: "The goods of the father, of which he is truly the master, are the bonds which keep his children dependent on him, and he can give them a share of his inheritance only in proportion as they shall properly deserved it from him by continual deference to his wishes." " page 113
"What he later saw as the natural characteristics of the two sexes is based on a view of the sexual act as not a mutually shared one, but one in which the male is the attacker and the female the aggressed upon." page 116
6) "Hobbe's entire political philosophy is founded on the argument that human beings are naturally equal, on account of the fact that they are equally able to kill one another." page 197
7) "There is, thus, a fundamental ambiguity which pervades not only the writings of these three philosophers [Hobbes, Locke, and Mill], but most liberal thought. Whereas the liberal tradition appears to be talking about individuals, as components of political systems, it is in fact talking about male-headed families. Whereas the interests of the male actors in the political realm are perceived as discrete, and often conflicting, the interests of the members of the family of each patriarch are perceived as entirely convergent with his own, and consequently women disappear from the subject of politics. As we shall see in the following chapter, John Stuart Mill did not subscribe to the previous liberal "solution" to this question of the interests and rights of women." page 202
8) Referring to JS Mill's philosophy: "It is in order to have their wives entirely dependent and uncritically devoted to them, he argues, that men have set up an entirely different set of values for them." page 219
"What hope, Mill asks, is there for the moral advancement of society, so long as the domestic atmosphere in which all its members receive their earliest moral education is based on such an unjust distribution of rights and powers? Only when marriage were to become recognized by law and society as a cooperative partnership between equals, might the family at last become, for the children, "a school of sympathy in equality, of living together in love, without power on one side and obedience on the other." Only then could children be prepared for what he regards as the "true virtue of human beings," that is, "fitness to live together as equals." " page 226
9) "The equality of individuals before the law is clearly established by the Constitution of the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment prescribes that:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.In the light of such provisions, combined with the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, it may seem on first consideration odd that the Equal Rights Amendment, specifically disallowing the denial or abridgment of rights on account of sex, should be necessary. For although the Fourteenth Amendment was specifically intended to ensure legal equality for the newly freed slaves, the clauses quoted above refer to "persons." However, lest we jump too quickly to the conclusion that "persons" automatically includes women, it is important to remember that the second section of the same amendment, in reference to the apportionment of representatives, introduced the word "male" into the Constitution for the first time. As Constitutional lawyer Ruth Ginsburg has noted, this "caused concern that the grand phrases of the first section of the fourteenth amendment would have, at best, qualified application to women." ... it was not until 1971 that the U.S. Supreme Court held a sex-based classification to be unconstitutional." pages 247-248
10) "The family's unity must prevail over the potential rights of the individual woman and demands that she not have a separate career or existence outside the private sphere." page 253
11) Part of Aristotle's argument for considering women inferior to men: "Once it is no longer agreed that women are by nature inferior and deficient in rationality, and exist only for the purpose of maintaining the household and bearing and rearing heirs, how can it be consistently maintained that the class of slaves exists only to perform its function of service, or that the class of artisans, because of the work it happens to do, is thereby unfitted for political life?" page 277
12) "Suffice it to say that, given the obvious advantages that capitalism derives from the present sex-role differentiation - particularly the cheap or gratuitous labor provided by women - changes such as are outlined above can be expected to be resisted strongly by those with economic power and an interest in maintaining the status quo." page 303
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