‘Is it possible to use animals for the same work if you do not give them the same training and education?’
‘It is not.’
‘If, then, we are to employ the women in the same duties as the men, we must give them the same instructions?’
‘Yes.’
‘To the men we give music and gymnastic.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we must train the women also in the same two arts, giving them, besides, a military education and treating them in the same way as the men.’
The professional humorist is then requested to refrain from the obvious jokes suggested by the idea of women stripped for exercise or old ladies practising athletics, and to remember that all such things are purely matters of custom. The real question is whether the nature of the human female is such as to enable her to share in all the employments of the male, or whether she is wholly unequal to any, or equal to some and not to others; and, if so, to which class military service belongs. Women certainly are different from men, but we must not be misled by the word ‘different.’ A bald-headed man is different from a long-haired man, but he may be just as good a cobbler, or a statesman. So women differ from men in the part they play in the propagation of the species; but that difference does not affect the question as to whether men and women should engage in the same pursuits. The argument of the adaptability of the sexes to various occupations is discussed, and this point is reached:
‘I conclude then, my friend, that none of the occupations which comprehend the ordering of a State belong to woman as woman, nor yet to man as man; but natural gifts are to be found here and there in both sexes alike; and, so far as her nature is concerned, the woman is admissible to all pursuits as well as the man: though in all of them the woman is weaker than the man.’
‘Precisely so.’