The children of the elite citizens are tended to by government workers, rather than by their own parents; hence the disestablishment of the nuclear family. Parents are not permitted to know the identities of their own children. The procreative period is extended to different ages for men and women (up to fifty-five and forty, respectively), after which they may conjugate as they wish, so long as no children are conceived. If conception does occur, the fetus is to be dealt with "on the understanding that there's to be no rearing for such a child" (459c).
Most of Plato's argument is challenging to tackle in our time. Few would dispute that the best arbiter of employment is ability. However, the society Plato described only gains this measure of gender equality through elitism. Government control should only extend so far as to guarantee a level playing field, and not to assign positions without compliance and competition from its citizenry - an unfair policy for both sexes. Furthermore, the selective breeding present within society are unthinkable in our age, depriving citizens of basic human rights to procreate and care for one's own resemble Nazi philosophy. The most debatable passage in The Republic, however, is found in Book V where the argument that women should be assigned lighter tasks because of "the weakness of the class" (457a). Many current scientific experiments tackle this problem. Even in a more straightforward debate over women's presence in the military or on the police force, many questions surface. The ultimate question being does physical build matter much in a technological society?.
In questions of biological differences in the brain, the situation is more abstract. Some studies suggest that males may be more spatially adept from birth, while others reverse this theory. Even if science does discover gender advantages, all of one sex will not superior to another sex in one area.
