The female body politics in Platonic discourse: A feminist reading

Abstract

Plato’s The Republic is considered to be amongst seminal works throughout the history of philosophy.It consists of variety of subjects ranging from politics in general to human beings in particular. Whatmakes The Republic groundbreaking is the fact that a variety of Platonic thoughts, one of which isabout ‘the presence of the female body in politics,’ is introduced and represented in the book. On thisregard, this study explores Platonic thoughts related to the female body politics within the scope oftheoretical analyses. It is scrutinised that Angela Carter’s authentic views challenge and subvertpatriarchal ideology whose norms authoritatively determine ‘the presence of women’ and dictate ‘thepolitics of their bodies.’ Therefore, it is within the purpose of this study to explore how Platonicthoughts that are mere-fantasy which harms women ideologically are challenged and disregarded byCarter.