/lit/ - Literature

Although none of their books have survived, there were a lot of great Greek female philosophers that loved ( philo– ) the wisdom ( -sophia). There are clear references to their existence and the influence they had on the works of some of the most famous Greek philosophers like Plato, Pythagoras or Socrates.
Philosophers in Ancient Greece were the first to attempt to rationalize their perception of nature and the world. Until then, the human kind used mythology and magic to explain the physical phenomena and how the world had been created. In the 7th century B.C. in all Hellenic cities of the Mediterranean and especially in Athens a quite radical approach to explaining the world began; one that used reason and evidence to do so. Their thoughts, experiments and work remarkably changed the way that people understood the world and themselves and became the introduction of scientific thinking for the Western Civilization.
As wise as these Ancient Greeks were, we can’t deny that, there was one major fault that they all had in common. They believed that women were inferior creatures compared to men and that their prospects were extremely limited. Women were excluded from social and political life and the majority were confined to a life at home and bearing children. Very few women philosophers managed to defy all conventions and pursue knowledge for themselves. Apart from their natural curiosity and intelligence, they had to be audacious, persuasive and persistent.