Plato’s Hystera. Women and Procreation in the Anthropogonic Account of Timaeus

Abstract

Despite being one of the most commented-upon and influential Platonic dialogues, there are few reflections concerning the place occupied by women in the strange anthropogonic tale of Timaeus, where at the same time as denying their role in the orgin of the species, there is an insistence upon the necessary character of their function in procreation. Following Loraux, who holds that in Greek literature a rhetoric predominates that identifies the feminine with sexuality and reproduction, at the same times as it obliterates their place in the genealogy of the species, I put forward that this rhetoric is reproduced in Timaeus, and that it is constructed upon three features:(1) the secondary place of women in the account of the origin of humanity, (2) the discursive function of the feminine as the introducer of sexuality and, (3) the association between birth and madness.