Abstract
The parameter of gender is useful in asking whether access to education and the work outcomes that derive from education are egalitarian. This discussion integrates Musonius’ belief that women deserve the same educational opportunities as men. Musonius qualifies this position with the condition that educated women must not abandon their domestic labor duties. I compare Musonius’ argument with Kristeva’s critique of what is only conditionally equal for women in the present-day. Women have benefited from feminism’s preceding incursions into patriarchal structures in receiving greater access to education and professional roles. Because such women do not relinquish domestic roles though, Kristeva argues that their experience of time is different from men’s. My consequent focus on time marks the original contribution this chapter makes to existing literature that is concerned with the complications in Musonius’ impression of gender equality. I apply Kristeva’s demand to recognize the differences between male and female temporalities to Musonius’ assertion of a singular virtue for men and women. An evaluation manifests that in terms of time there is not a singular Stoic virtue structure for men and women. From this, I ask whether the modern woman must problematically embody a Stoic indifference to inegalitarian time.
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Notes
- 1.
Linda Brodkey and Michelle Fine interpret that this gender disparity means that science affords males the belief that they alone legislate the human knowledge of reality (Brodkey and Fine 1992, 80). Janet Kourany reframes the debate by attending to the differences in gender disparities between various academic fields (Kourany 2012, 251). In Reflections on Gender and Science Evelyn Keller considers whether modern gender disparities simply continue the composition of Plato’s Academy (Keller 1985, 25). See Yeandle (2017) for a more recent discussion of the perpetuation of philosophy’s male domination.
- 2.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) informs that “millions of girls around the world are still being denied an education” (UNESCO 2013). Its report identifies a global trend in which “two thirds of the 774 million illiterate people in the world are female” (2013). This prevention of access to basic education also occurs at a tertiary level, particularly in fields that lead to “skilled” vocations. D. Kelly Weisberg argues that historically “one of the paramount concerns of any skilled profession is the regulation of access to the profession” (Weisberg 1977, 485). Weisberg complementarily highlights the struggle women have had “to gain entrance to the legal profession” (485). Madeleine Arnot, Miriam David, and Gaby Weiner also recognize the structural exclusion of women from secondary and tertiary education programs. Their focus furthermore comprises which state policies have been implemented to address these inequalities (Arnot et al. 1999, ix).
- 3.
There are brief examples of other Stoic philosophers also arguing for equal appreciations of men and women. Diogenes Laërtius reports that in his Republic Zeno makes the demand that we perceive men and women as equal given that they are “in common among the wise” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.66). Epictetus in Discourses posits that of a wise man he sees “no reason why he should not marry and have children” and that “his wife will be wise, like him” (Epictetus 2008, 3.22, 68). Diogenes additionally advises of Antisthenes’ tendency to assert that “virtue is the same in a man as in a woman” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 6.5). Given that Antisthenes was a student of Socrates, and taught Zeno’s teacher Crates of Thebes, this provides a possible link between Socrates’ views on women and the perspectives of the earliest Stoics. Plato’s Republic indeed details how Socrates proposes that women are as “philosophic” as men (Plato 2012, 6.1.456a) and as capable of fulfilling the city’s most prominent roles such as “guard and other duties” (6.1.451d). Donald Dudley doubts such a link between Socrates and Zeno however. Dudley claims that the Stoics fabricated accounts connecting Antisthenes to Zeno to create the impression of an unbroken sequence between Socrates and Zeno (Dudley 1937, 2–4). Of relevance to all the above is Malin Grahn-Wilder’s chapter “The Stoics on Equal Educability of Girls and Boys, and the Origin of Gendered Characteristics” taken from her Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy. Musonius’ assertion in Grahn-Wilder’s view regarding the equal treatment of women and men “follows naturally from premises commonly accepted by Stoic thinkers from Zeno to the Romans” (Grahn-Wilder 2018, 10).
- 4.
James Dillon provides a comprehensive account of Musonius’ “three rounds of exile, two under Nero and one under Vespasian” (Dillon 2004, 6). The way that Musonius responds to each of these periods of banishment motivates Dillon to describe such experiences as revealing “of the congruence of his teaching and living” (6). One such banishment sends Musonius to the notoriously desolate island of Gyara or Gyaros. Despite this “Musonius lived cheerfully” (6) whereas other exiles had to be condemned to less brutal locations.
- 5.
Cynthia King records in the “Translator’s Introduction” to her presentation of Musonius’ thought that he taught Epictetus after having been exiled by Vespasian and then returning under the rule of Titus (King in Musonius Rufus 2011, 13). Epictetus describes on multiple occasions the relationship with his Stoic master Musonius. One such example in Discourses is where Epictetus recalls how “Musonius used to test me by saying, ‘your master is going to afflict you with some hardship or other’” (1.9, 29). See also Reydams-Schils (2017, 157) and Long (2002, 13–17) for further explanations of the Musonius-Epictetus connection.
- 6.
Diogenes Laërtius’ commentary on Chrysippus exemplifies this point. Chrysippus clarifies that a life in accordance with nature will be virtuous and happy; “the chief good is to live in a manner corresponding to nature” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). This counters the interpretation that posits virtue or happiness as ends to target. Happiness is “supervened” through being virtuous, which itself is supervened through a life “corresponding to one’s own nature and to the universal nature” (7.53).
- 7.
I am not the first commentator to offer this reading of Musonius’ thought. Scott Aikin and Emily McGill-Rutherford’s article “Stoicism, Feminism and Autonomy” (2014) addresses aspects of Musonius’ theory in ways that are not dissimilar to the discussion I have presented. Edward Arnold’s Roman Stoicism (1911) also reveals these issues, as does Elizabeth Asmis’ chapter “The Stoics on Women” (1996). For a broader discussion of the complications of applying Musonius’ philosophy to modern feminist theory, see Martha Nussbaum’s chapter that we have already encountered—“The Incomplete Feminism of Musonius Rufus, Platonist, Stoic, and Roman” (Nussbaum 2002).
- 8.
Fletcher and Benjamin (1990) provide one of the more useful collections of commentaries on Kristeva’s many foci.
- 9.
Kurt Lampe gives a comprehensive account of Kristeva’s interest in Stoicism from a semiological perspective. Not incidentally given our choice of Stoic protagonist in this chapter, Lampe here integrates other features of Musonius’ philosophy such as his positions on eating meat (Lampe 2016, 34–35).
- 10.
Marlene LeGates’ In Their Time: A History of Feminism in Western Society illuminates the reasons for this problematically conditional success of first-wave feminism. Legates’ chapter “Issues in First-Wave Feminism” (LeGates 2001, 237–280) particularly helps us to understand how the first wave’s inadequacies bred the differently oriented, second wave.
- 11.
More adventurously, Brad Inwood asserts that because of these publicly practical orientations Musonius was likely not a Stoic philosopher whatsoever. Inwood characterizes him instead as a “generic philosopher” and “public intellectual” (Inwood 2017, 257).
- 12.
For Rita Felski this means that women are now included in, rather than marginalized from, linear time. This in her estimation is no advantage as women now have to be more concerned with linear time and “more preoccupied with time measurement, than men” (Felski 2000, 20). The reason for this greater time-preoccupation is that the modern era has seen women relinquish few of their time-demanding domestic responsibilities while now also working full-time professional hours.
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Johncock, W. (2020). Can Education Be Egalitarian? Musonius Rufus and Julia Kristeva on Gendered Labor. In: Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_10
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