There were many issues about equality between people, in the history of human civilisation. The sexual and gender equalities were the most difficult to identify. It was also difficult to achieve gender equality. In this regard, various philosophers and critical thinkers had diverse approaches and ways of their ideas realisation. The main relevance of exploring diversity in ideas on sexuality, gender equality and relationship between sexes is in an opportunity to achieve a systematic exploration of the subject. It can also help in finding new ways of problems resolution. The historical exploration of ideas development also provides an opportunity to trace certain trends in ideas development and subsequent background of contemporary situation. The aim of this essay is to explore different ideas on sexuality and gender equality through different epochs. In this regard, attention is paid to four thinkers: Plato, Bacon, Diderot and Marx.
Since Plato lived in the Ancient Greece, he reflected the ideas in terms which were understood for his society and which reflected the realities of his time. In this regard, it should be outlined that, in Plato's society, women were in a submissive position and could be wives, public women or hetaerae. The last ones were educated women who had the most freedom. They were companions without any rights. Men dominated Greek society in all possible ways. Although Plato was an advanced philosopher and free in his thinking on the nature of things, his freedom referred mainly to men citizens. It had nothing to do with women rights and equality. In this regard, he argued that women were actually of very little value in the Greek society. Their only function was to serve their husbands in the process of procreation. In other words, women had to fulfil their social function of providing the new generation of healthy citizens for the Greek cities-policies.
In terms of men's responsibilities toward women, they were also regarded through family duties and their social implications. Obviously, fidelity and respect were not the values he proclaimed. In fact, Plato's attitude to women was quite instrumentalist and materialistic in its nature. He argued that the achievement of harmony in inter-personal relations of Eros was possible only between two males, who were equal in their spirituality and physical grace. In this regard, he proclaimed a Platonic love. In his times, it mainly referred to both physical and romantic love between two men.
In this case, Plato had separated genders even further than they were practically divided in society. He argued that only men were capable of spirituality and subsequent achievement of godly state of Eros. On the other hand, women were denied not only the ability to reach Eros. They were denied the possession of souls and spirituality. They were considered to be like slaves, although treated a bit better due to their social role of childbirth. Although some women had more benefits in the society, the general situation was not gender equality. For Plato, this social structure was not a problem since he had a very little concern about women.
Francis Bacon's views on sexuality and gender equality are still far from the contemporary gender equality. The 17th century England was highly masculine and dominant in international relations. So, as a representative of his time Bacon could not proclaim gender equality. Instead, he had institutionalised it in the science of his time. Through his approach to sciences he proclaimed gender inequality. His orientation on a scientific approach to knowledge gaining opposed all other ways of inquiry. This means that some methods were considered to be appropriate and masculine, meaning worth of using. The other methods of research were considered to be feminine and ridiculous. So only women could use these methods and those methods were not to be used by men. Those feminine methods were considered to be irrelevant as female needlework. In this regard, the main feature of his approach to science was the rejection of hypotheses as a way of research. In this regard, theory was meant to be formed on the basis of the factual knowledge and not the other way around. In his explanation, Bacon used terms of strict masculine logic, arguing that the previous non-concrete methods were childish, feminine and immature in their nature. Only women could build theories and only then try to find whether reality was the same. In this regard, it can be argued that he divided knowledge into masculine (exact knowledge) and female (vague assumptions).
Another aspect of his thinking was that, in the division between nature and science, empirics and rationality, Bacon practically summarised the gender policy of his time. In this regard, the nature was referred to as a feminine phenomenon, which was meant to be conquered by the science, which was predominantly masculine. In other words, women were considered to be weak. They were to be won or conquered by male masculinity. Therefore, the male roles were dominant both in sex and family decision-making. Women were meant to be submissive. Again, family roles corresponded to what was suitable and favourable to the requirements of a masculine, patriarchal society.
Diderot made a substantial step forward toward exploration of human individuality in contrast to socially-imposed roles both men and women had to follow. In this regard, he argued that what was perceived to be civilised was far from what was natural to human beings. Instead of acting according to the human nature, people turn into social subjects, which obey the laws imposed on them. In this regard, he argued that the perversions of civilisation are due to the interference of artificial social institutions into private spheres of one's personality. Subconsciously, an individual is capable of acting according to instincts. They are the right answer to the natural human behaviour. That behaviour was not savage, in its nature, but rather free of guilt and morale restraints.
In this regard, Diderot argued that, by nature, human beings are not motivated to harm each other. They are more likely to do so in the civilised society, which aims at limitation of one's freedom. Therefore, an individual wants to fight back in order to be free. In terms of sexuality and gender equality, Diderot argued that both genders are equal. Therefore, they should be treated accordingly. He proclaimed a return to the natural order of things and sexual libertinism. He suggested that desires of one's flesh are not sinful but natural and contribute to human self-realisation and fulfilment of one's desires.
Marx looked on the subject of sexuality and gender equality in terms of individual's ownership over capital and division of labour. In this regard, he was not so much interested in human expression of one's sexuality but in productivity of one's labour. He argued that labour was equal between men and women. Thus, aiming at achievement of universal and highest productivity of labour production, both men and women should work and build a socialist society. In that society, both genders would be equal because they could perform equally in terms of capital production. In this regard, he argued that no preferences were meant to be made to women or men because their gender did not matter. Their contribution to common goodness and equal division of final benefits of socialism was everything that mattered.
Although Marx made everyone equal in his socialism, he did not let them stay individual. In this regard, human being was denied individuality of personal desires and their subsequent satisfactions. In other words, human beings were viewed as genderless and desireless units in the communist machine. Thus, Marx had dehumanised and desexualised a human being in socialism. Another important aspect of his thinking was that he destroyed the institute of family. On the other hand, he actually returned to the very naturalistic attitude to inter-personal relationship - a reproductive function as means of further labour increase. Thus, it can be also argued that he did not go far from Greeks and Middle Ages Europeans.
In terms of gender performance, in all cases, we see materialistic approach to gender's expressiveness. The dominant division between two genders is in the difference of their roles in childbirth and functionality in the society. Spirituality is virtually denied to opposite sexes. Although Plato refers to homosexual relations as the most spiritual, the inter-gender relations are only about procreation. Even Diderot, paying attention to sexuality and one's desires, referrers mainly to the materialistic fulfilment of these desires. In general, it can be summarised that the outlined above gender discourse was limited by physical gender differences rather than gender similarities. Therefore, it could not achieve any common ground for gender equality.
The main reason for the mentioned above similarities is due to the prevalence of certain tendencies. These tendencies have not been challenged until recently. First of all, all of the described societies were patriarchal, without any signs of the feminist movement. Under these conditions, male philosophers seldom think about what else was possible for women, because it was not something of their interest. Some performing gender roles were accepted as a rule and could not be challenged. It was too early for those societies. In other words, without a strong movement for gender equality, which required more thinkers and activists, ideas could not be spread and implemented. Another reason was that most of the described societies were still materialism-driven. The main reason for that was a desire to survive. Existentialism cannot be ignored in the societies which were fighting Ancient wars, conquering new world or aimed at global socialist revolution. Therefore, societies and their thinkers could not think of the potential of the body outside that body. Physical differences were crucial for judging one's social roles and value for society.
Overall, from all mentioned above, it can be concluded that, in the epochs before a scientific revolution, sexuality and gender equality were viewed mainly in terms of social reproductive function of a heterosexual family. Without necessity to view gender roles in terms of existentialism, the next centuries were able to pay more attention to human individuality and self-satisfaction rather than one's duty over society and human kind, in general. In order to think about one's sexuality and individualism of personal desires, the society needs to be more open to diversity and freedom of thought. Therefore, the aforementioned ideas show that thinkers from different epochs had to work on acceptance of lighter philosophical ideas in order to achieve diversity of thoughts. This paved the way to the contemporary gender equality and diversity of ideas.
Work Cited
Russell Bertrand. History of Western Philosophy. London: Routledge. 2004. Print.
