The Role of Females in Philosophy

Aristotle was an ingenious ancient philosopher, who had many ideas about life that are still looked upon with respect today. I thought that his views on ethics were very relatable and could agree with them rather easily. However, I found Aristotle's views on women to be highly unrealistic. His take on the role of women was probably looked at a bit more open-mindedly during his time, because there had not been as much progress in the medical field and what exactly a woman's role is in that context. In my opinion, if Aristotle had known that a woman was in no way an "unfinished man", he might have viewed women differently all around. Had Aristotle spent more time around women, or if women had played a higher role in society during his time, I think his take on them might have changed after having seen that they are men's equals.
Plato, like Aristotle, was a great ancient Greek philosopher, but the two men had highly contrasting opinions on many philosophical issues. For example, he believed in a world of ideas that existed along with the material world, while Aristotle did not believe that a world of ideas actually existed. Their views on women differentiated from each other greatly as well. Plato believed that women could be just as capable as men in a position of authority, but he thought this was only true if they were not responsible for raising children or keeping a house, or any other typical duties associated with women. I find Plato's views on women more acceptable than Aristotle's by far, though it seems to me that a woman would not need to be totally separated from child rearing to be just as capable of reasoning as a man.
One statement of Plato's that I agree most with is,"A state that does not educate women is like a man that only trains his right arm." In my opinion, this quote shows very clearly that Plato saw women as men's equals, unlike Aristotle. Plato seems to have tried to allow women to lead lives equal to those that men could lead, and even if he didn't totally make this happen, he at least built a foundation for women to have full rights later in time.
Throughout the entire novel, almost all characters of authority were male, which I believe was in part due to how the world has always been, with men being in roles of power, and also may be due in part to any bias of the author, Jostein Gaarder, being as how he is a male as well. In the past, women probably did not have to courage to aim for a powerful role in society because of their predetermined status and fear of the reactions to their boldness. Also, throughout most of ancient and recent history, women were not allowed to have important roles in society or would be disrespected if they did, had they been bold enough to try for a position of power or honor within their society.
Overall, the different philosophers have had varying opinions about what women's role in life should be, some with positive attitudes towards women and others with negative attitudes. Regardless, for many centuries, most women did not have important roles in society, which means that even if there were many female philosophers, they were not taken seriously and, hence, not mentioned in Sophie's World.