>Maybe we should distinguish between the Socrates Plato constructed for his
>arguments and the one of flesh and blood. Socrates died for his rhetoric,
>and the evidence suggests (to me, anyway) that he was a great fan of
>Aspasia's - in fact he names his two great mentors as Aspasia and Diotima -
>both women. Just possibly, our view of gender relations in 5th century
>Athens is coloured by the particular sources we have available to us, and,
>whilst the law was exceptionally patriarchal at the time, practice was not
>quite so universally so, if for no other reason that the outside world
>differed on a lot of these points.
>
>Cheers,
>Rob.
Not to speak of the fact that it would be foolish to take as gospel all men's assertions of women's inferior status and influence since it is often politic, and at the very least self-aggrandising, to claim to have power -- as long as there's no likelihood of the claim being publicly disputed -- even (perhaps especially) in areas where one has less power than one'd like to have.
cheers Joanna S.
www.overlookhouse.com