I think I agree with all of your answers, especially the fourth one. I don't think there are distinct "masculine" and "feminine" virtues - men and women are likely to express "courage" or "compassion" in different ways, but it's not like there's only one way for a man or for a woman to be virtuous, so we'd expect variation. I'd even say that the virtues that don't come naturally to us could actually be the most important to cultivate - I think there are plenty of men who could benefit themselves and others by being more nurturing, kinder and more humble!
I guess my answer to the third question is similar - there are many things to be knowledgeable about, and I'd even say there are many ways to become wise - practical experience vs. deep contemplation, for example. While the first part of that question could be answered through observation, I honestly feel like the only answer to "are they wise by knowing the same or different things?" that makes any sense is "Yes, they are".
Just a note about "contrary" - that's a philosophical technical term by the time of Aristotle, and does not imply conflict as such, just difference. Any two colors, for example, that are not the same one color univocally are "contrary." One cannot be both actually orange and actually blue at the same time and in the same manner - but at the same time, these colors famously compliment one another. So asking if something is "the same with, contrary to, or opposite" something else is, understood rightly, exhaustive in a technical sense.
If there is a difference between these two things signified, a male person as male and a female person as female, but not something that makes them not just contrary but "contradictory", not at all the same and in fact opposed in some absolute or qualified sense, then male and female are contrary terms relative to that difference, not contradictory.
If, on the other hand, what it means essentially to be a male person as male is contradictory of what it means to be a female person as female, then to say someone is a male person, as such, absolutely excludes that way in which someone could be described as a female person, as such.
This is just a clarification for the technical logical use there. Obviously, we often use contrary to mean "different in some opposed way" or even "contradictory" in speech loosely.
How do you distinguish what is absolute vs what is not, without reducing people to sexual body parts? Besides body parts, is there anything exclusive to men or exclusive to women? There's a lot of talk of tendencies - men tend to be like this, women tend to be like that. Ok, but what do we say about women who prefer STEM and football, or men who prefer care work? They are real people, and any anthropology or philosophy of men and women has to account for them somehow. I don't know how to say "some women prefer STEM and football, and they are real women, and the essence of womanhood is something beyond female body parts."
The only answers I've found so far are "you really are a man, despite female body parts" and "you're wrong about your desire for STEM work. Deep down you truly prefer care work." Neither of these is satisfactory.
The best thing I've got so far is "pursue sanctity, grow in virtue, and you will become more your true identity," which is unsettling but perhaps the best we'll be able to do
I have to get to work so I can’t write out a full response, but as someone who grew up evangelical the word “complementary” immediately triggers my defenses. I don’t believe that you mean it in this way whatsoever, but when churches use the language of “complementarianism” it often results in a situation in which men and women are flattened into stereotypes. (And somehow, women are always better at household chores and making food for church potlucks to complement men’s… something? I was never clear on that lol.)
I agree with your answers and I think women and men have a way of approaching the same task or subject matter differently; Edith Stein wrote of this but there are also many ways of being a woman and stereotypes make a caricature of reality.
The thing that struck me most reading this was that it completely ignores non-binary people. There have always been people who didn't fit in the gender binary, and this framing of the question seems to forget that they exist.
I think I agree with all of your answers, especially the fourth one. I don't think there are distinct "masculine" and "feminine" virtues - men and women are likely to express "courage" or "compassion" in different ways, but it's not like there's only one way for a man or for a woman to be virtuous, so we'd expect variation. I'd even say that the virtues that don't come naturally to us could actually be the most important to cultivate - I think there are plenty of men who could benefit themselves and others by being more nurturing, kinder and more humble!
I guess my answer to the third question is similar - there are many things to be knowledgeable about, and I'd even say there are many ways to become wise - practical experience vs. deep contemplation, for example. While the first part of that question could be answered through observation, I honestly feel like the only answer to "are they wise by knowing the same or different things?" that makes any sense is "Yes, they are".
Just a note about "contrary" - that's a philosophical technical term by the time of Aristotle, and does not imply conflict as such, just difference. Any two colors, for example, that are not the same one color univocally are "contrary." One cannot be both actually orange and actually blue at the same time and in the same manner - but at the same time, these colors famously compliment one another. So asking if something is "the same with, contrary to, or opposite" something else is, understood rightly, exhaustive in a technical sense.
If there is a difference between these two things signified, a male person as male and a female person as female, but not something that makes them not just contrary but "contradictory", not at all the same and in fact opposed in some absolute or qualified sense, then male and female are contrary terms relative to that difference, not contradictory.
If, on the other hand, what it means essentially to be a male person as male is contradictory of what it means to be a female person as female, then to say someone is a male person, as such, absolutely excludes that way in which someone could be described as a female person, as such.
This is just a clarification for the technical logical use there. Obviously, we often use contrary to mean "different in some opposed way" or even "contradictory" in speech loosely.
How do you distinguish what is absolute vs what is not, without reducing people to sexual body parts? Besides body parts, is there anything exclusive to men or exclusive to women? There's a lot of talk of tendencies - men tend to be like this, women tend to be like that. Ok, but what do we say about women who prefer STEM and football, or men who prefer care work? They are real people, and any anthropology or philosophy of men and women has to account for them somehow. I don't know how to say "some women prefer STEM and football, and they are real women, and the essence of womanhood is something beyond female body parts."
The only answers I've found so far are "you really are a man, despite female body parts" and "you're wrong about your desire for STEM work. Deep down you truly prefer care work." Neither of these is satisfactory.
The best thing I've got so far is "pursue sanctity, grow in virtue, and you will become more your true identity," which is unsettling but perhaps the best we'll be able to do
I have to get to work so I can’t write out a full response, but as someone who grew up evangelical the word “complementary” immediately triggers my defenses. I don’t believe that you mean it in this way whatsoever, but when churches use the language of “complementarianism” it often results in a situation in which men and women are flattened into stereotypes. (And somehow, women are always better at household chores and making food for church potlucks to complement men’s… something? I was never clear on that lol.)
I agree with your answers and I think women and men have a way of approaching the same task or subject matter differently; Edith Stein wrote of this but there are also many ways of being a woman and stereotypes make a caricature of reality.
The thing that struck me most reading this was that it completely ignores non-binary people. There have always been people who didn't fit in the gender binary, and this framing of the question seems to forget that they exist.