WHAT SHOULD WOMEN DO? THE STOICS ON GENDER-ROLE DIVISION

The aim of this paper is to enquire if the Stoics consider certain social activities appropriate only for men or women, a much-debated question in the scholarship. Here it is argued that the Stoics are not committed to gendered divisions of tasks. This claim is pled through an analysis of the various testimonies and of the Stoic notion of appropriate activity (καθῆκον). This result leads to reconsider the Stoics’ stand within their cultural environment and will hopefully contribute to the debate on their thinking on womanhood. This study is thus structured: firstly, the notion of καθῆκον is presented; next, the evidence of the Stoic use of gender as a parameter in determining καθήκοντα is discussed; then, a reconstruction of the social role the early Stoics assigned to women in their planned constitutions is attempted; finally, the reflection of later Stoics on the role of women in actual societies is addressed.