girls exercise three, individual action
LISTENING FOR LEADERSHIP
For each story, answer the following questions: What are the various good, virtuous qualities women display? How do women make men do what they want? How do they use their bodies, and how do they use their intellect to effect what they want? What do women do (or what happens to them) after they have succeeded in achieving their aims?
What are the qualities and circumstances that allow an individual woman to rise to a position of power?
Are the positive qualities of these individual women different from those illustrated in the “collective action” section? If so, how?
Has Plutarch given us an exhaustive account of the human virtues? Do each of the women mentioned represent an exemplar of a particular virtue? Consider the other ancient women you may be familiar with: Cleopatra, Octavia, Fulvia, Jocasta from the Oedipus Tyrannus, Lysistrata, Livia (wife of Augustus and mother of the emperor Tiberius). Do these women fit one of the types Plutarch describes here? or do they belong to another category?
Think back to Plutarch’s methodological statements in the preface. Do you think this text is complete with the “Virtues of Men” he seemed to indicate as a part of his argument? How might Plutarch expect Clea (or any other reader) to compare men and women’s virtues without presenting “Virtues of Men”? What are the other ways in which this text compares men and women?