Stoicism
Women Disappeared (Again) || All Of Us, Part Of Everything
I’m learning about stoicism as a philosophy. Its basic tenet is to discover and examine ways to lead a good life. It does not mean step aside and take what’s coming your way or accept what has taken place in the past. Stoicism also teaches we’re all part of everything; interdependent — Sympatheia. This single concept is so damned present in our world and country today as we’re dealing with the #Covid pandemic, political violence in the U.S., and women’s rights worldwide.
I’m teaching myself to default to seeking out women’s voices instead of take the easy way of delving into first results in search, library listings, social media trending topics which tend to list male results much higher than women’s. It takes work to curate women’s voices.
There are women stoics in history and modern times but as is the case today, women stoics have largely been written about in relation to their male peers or out of history altogether. It’s a familiar tactic in history, science, technology, religion. The fiction of and patriarchal protection of the bible has disappeared women of the time as authors. Ironically, just as it’s impossible to know with complete accuracy who wrote the bible, women as possible authors are dismissed except for three texts (and only based on the voice of those texts). Ah patriarchy.
Retellings of the historic Porcia Catonis are told through a constricted lens of her marriage to Brutus (yep, that Brutus) with excerpts like him marveling at her having gashed her leg (to prove a thing to him?) and by that act finally deciding she was worth his confidence so told her all about the plot to kill Caesar. Most accounts of her life come from the memoir of Brutus or biographies about men, so we don’t know with confidence what Porcia’s telling of her life would have been. Particularly in the stories of her death. She may have died by suicide. Writings about her dying by suicide revolve around her despair at being neglected and say she may have swallowed hot coals. I don’t believe that for one second. While I know people have killed themselves by self immolation, I doubt seriously hot coals would make it past anyone’s lips to be legitimately swallowed. Her being murdered is more believable in context. The fact that none of her writings survive means I’ll take all accounts of her life and death with a grain of salt and context about women’s options during the 40s of BCE. As is the case for the majority of historical stoic women, accounts of their existence depends fully on the interpretive writings of men about their circumstances.
Discovering and examining ways to lead a good life are not actions, but found through acting on the ideas of stoicism.
Life is short and the world is unpredictable (understatement). It’s important to know this without letting it become despair. In stoicism this means know these truths, live fully, welcome the experiences life brings more than wishing things go a certain way. This gets us ready for the times when, not if, a setback happens.
