But is there no difference between men and women?
Nay, are they not wholly different?
THERE was the difficulty, Glaucon, which made me unwilling to speak of family relations.

However, when a man is out of his depth, whether in a pool or in an ocean, he can only swim for his life; and we must try to find a way of escape, if we can.
The argument is, that different natures have different uses, and the natures of men and women are said to differ.

But this is only a verbal opposition.

We do not consider that the difference may be purely nominal and accidental; for example, a bald man and a hairy man are opposed in a single point of view, but you cannot infer that because a bald man is a cobbler a hairy man ought not to be a cobbler.

Now why is such an inference erroneous?
Simply because the opposition between them is partial only, like the difference between a male physician and a female physician, not running through the whole nature, like the difference between a physician and a carpenter.