The professional humorist is then requested to refrain from the obvious jokes suggested by the idea of women stripped for exercise or old ladies practising athletics, and to remember that all such things are purely matters of custom. The real question is whether the nature of the human female is such as to enable her to share in all the employments of the male, or whether she is wholly unequal to any, or equal to some and not to others; and, if so, to which class military service belongs. Women certainly are different from men, but we must not be misled by the word ‘different.’ A bald-headed man is different from a long-haired man, but he may be just as good a cobbler, or a statesman. So women differ from men in the part they play in the propagation of the species; but that difference does not affect the question as to whether men and women should engage in the same pursuits. The argument of the adaptability of the sexes to various occupations is discussed, and this point is reached: ‘I conclude then, my friend, that none of the occupations which comprehend the ordering of a State belong to woman as woman, nor yet to man as man; but natural gifts are to be found here and there in both sexes alike; and, so far as her nature is concerned, the woman is admissible to all pursuits as well as the man: though in all of them the woman is weaker than the man.’ ‘Precisely so.’ ‘Shall we, then, appropriate all virtues to men and none to women?’ ‘How can we?’ ‘On the contrary, we shall hold, I imagine, that one woman may have talents for medicine, and another be without them; and that one may be musical and another unmusical?’ ‘Undoubtedly.’ ‘And shall we not also say, that one woman may have qualifications for gymnastic exercises and for war, and another be unwarlike and without a taste for gymnastics?’ ‘I think we shall.’ ‘Again, may there not be a love of knowledge in one, and a distaste for it in another? And may not one be spirited, and another spiritless?’ ‘True again.’ ‘If that be so, there are some women who are fit, and others who are unfit, for the office of guardians. For were not those the qualities we selected, in the case of men, as marking their fitness for that office?’ ‘Yes, they were.’ ‘Then, as far as the guardianship of a state is concerned, there is no difference between the natures of the man and of the woman, but only various degrees of weakness and strength?’ ‘Apparently there is none.’ ‘Then we shall have to select duly qualified women also to share in the life and official labours of the duly qualified men; since we find that they are competent to the work, and of kindred nature with the men.’