Can Education Be Egalitarian? Musonius Rufus and Julia Kristeva on Gendered Labor

Abstract

The parameter of gender is useful in asking whether access to education and the work outcomes that derive from education are egalitarian. This discussion integrates Musonius’ belief that women deserve the same educational opportunities as men. Musonius qualifies this position with the condition that educated women must not abandon their domestic labor duties. I compare Musonius’ argument with Kristeva’s critique of what is only conditionally equal for women in the present-day. Women have benefited from feminism’s preceding incursions into patriarchal structures in receiving greater access to education and professional roles. Because such women do not relinquish domestic roles though, Kristeva argues that their experience of time is different from men’s. My consequent focus on time marks the original contribution this chapter makes to existing literature that is concerned with the complications in Musonius’ impression of gender equality. I apply Kristeva’s demand to recognize the differences between male and female temporalities to Musonius’ assertion of a singular virtue for men and women. An evaluation manifests that in terms of time there is not a singular Stoic virtue structure for men and women. From this, I ask whether the modern woman must problematically embody a Stoic indifference to inegalitarian time.