Sí, sigue ocurriéndonos que, al pensar en filosofía, la imagen que nos viene a la mente es la de ese hombre que apoya la cabeza en la mano, sentado sobre una piedra, mirando a la nada. Es The Thinker, de Rodin, en París. Una de las imágenes más icónicas de la filosofía. Un hombre solo que intenta resolver no solo sus problemas, sino los del mundo.
Hay, sin embargo, otra imagen habitual para representar la filosofía que nos explica el pensador español Eduardo Infante cuando lo entrevistamos en Cuerpomente. Es The School of Athens, de Rafael Sanzio. Un lugar de encuentro en el que representan a los grandes filósofos de la Antigüedad, debatiendo, discutiendo, intercambiando ideas. Están en comunidad. Y curiosamente, en esta imagen icónica, también aparecen mujeres. Si es así, ¿por qué nos cuesta tanto pensar en la filosofía como en algo femenino?
Philosophy with long beards
When we think of philosophy we picture long beards. Or, if we place it in today’s rather misguided panorama, muscular men. But philosophy has never been something exclusively masculine, as the painting by Raphael shows. Almost at the centre of the image we discover one of the greatest classical female thinkers: Hypatia of Alexandria.
Before her, though, there were other female thinkers who helped shape philosophy alongside the men of their era. One of the earliest, often very forgotten, was Hipparchia of Maroneia.
Castigated twice by history, for being female and for following the Cynic school, Hipparchia has been forgotten on purpose, but we should not. With a gaze filled with irony, she would look at us and say: “Am I mistaken for dedicating myself to philosophy rather than to the loom?” Would we remember her more, perhaps?
From the loom to thought
Historically, women have been asked to step away from the world of thought. Their place, especially in that fourth century BCE when Hipparchia was born, lay at home, at the looms, in domestic life.
Hipparchia, however, resisted all of this and chose to think. Not in the most banal sense of the word, but in the noblest. The philosopher joined the Cynic school, in the circle of Crates of Thebes, one or two generations after the famous Diogenes urged the emperor to “step aside, for he blocks the sun.”
To be Cynic meant, among other things, taking a voluntary vow of poverty, embracing freedom, cosmopolitanism and autarchy, and, without doubt, being somewhat irreverent and subversive. The bedrock of Cynic thought was, after all, that happiness is achieved by living in accordance with nature, with minimal needs and complete self-sufficiency. And in such a world, social conventions are as redundant as external possessions.
Thus we should imagine Hipparchia in the Cynic’s typical attire: barely a sack and a staff. She even married the man she chose, without seeking her family’s permission. And he was eight years her senior. Antipater would later collect an epigram in which she is described as follows:
- “I, Hipparchia, did not follow the customs of the female sex, but with a man’s heart I followed the strong dogs (the Cynics). I did not like the cloak fastened with the brooch, nor my foot shod, and my belt forgot its perfume. I go barefoot, with a staff; a dress covers my limbs and I have the hard earth for a bed. I am mistress of my life to know as much and more than the Maenads to hunt.”
The Right to Think
That final verse perhaps holds the essence of Hipparchia. Defying her era, she proclaimed a right to know. Her life was hers, and no one else’s. If her image serves us for anything, it is as an example of freedom, but also as an invitation to dare to occupy spaces that are still reserved for men today: the spaces of reflection, philosophy and knowledge.
We spoke recently about this with the philosopher Mariana Dimópulos, who dedicates her latest book, The Century of Hannah Arendt, to eight other great female thinkers of the twentieth century. And to herself, who found her path into philosophy not without considerable effort.
“Thinking gives me happiness,” she told us, “and don’t think it was easy to discover, because women are not meant to think, to make thinking a job.” The contemporary philosopher reflected then on the invisible barriers that continue to separate women from philosophical work. “I had to understand that many things were not made for me to do this, because the natural paths were elsewhere. It’s not that anyone stops you, but the easy option is the other. You don’t get applause for thinking,” Dimópulos asserted.
Her wish, like Hipparchia’s, is that the women who went before us serve as an inspiration to dare to tread paths still alien to what society expects of us. “I learn to think by reading these women. I learn to think, to be happy, in my own way, to be me, in my own way,” Dimópulos concluded in the interview. And her words, without a doubt, transport us to that Hipparchia who, with absolute irreverence, asked: “Am I wrong to devote myself to philosophy rather than to the loom?”
