/lit/ - Literature

>>18175688
As Aristotle explains in De Generatione Animalium (book 2, chapter 3), a woman is simply a misbegotten man. The complete example of a given animal is male, with the female existing as an incomplete variation. Aquinas expands on this in Summa Theologica (first part, question 92), observing that natural law requires both a male (active, complete) and female (passive, incomplete) for reproduction to occur. Hermaphroditic species must carry both in one, burdening them with the female part of the reproductive process. Assuming that God is bound by natural law (cannot just create square circles, etc), the only way for purely male individuals to exist is to offload the female part to another individual. In other words, woman takes on the burden of being incomplete so that men can exist.
One might be tempted to think this reasoning is born out of a primitive understanding of biology. Modern science, however, confirms that bearing children incurs a great expense in bioenergetic resources. Much of what distinguishes a woman from a man is a trade off in favour of reproduction over efficacy in other areas. Even psychometrically women are much more likely to possess traits such as neuroticism and agreeableness, which make them better at keeping small children out of danger, but worse at everything else.
>What would the platonic form of a woman look like?
In light of the above, I suspect the question is a contradiction in terms. The ideal man is the ideal human. Being female is just one of the many deviations that matter can take from the ideal.

Thomas Aquinas was one of the most serious people who ever lived, but even he constantly refers to a sense of the ridiculous as being one of the most essential human traits. So don't take life too seriously, for tomorrow you too could be involved in a freak donkey accident.