Feminist political philosopher Lorenne Clark made the assertion that from the standpoint of political theory, women, children, and the family live in an "ontological basement" not because of some historical accident or necessity, but as the consequence of an arbitrary definition (Curren, 2003). Clark, joined by Jane Roland Martin (1985), advanced the argument that the reproductive processes of society were excluded arbitrarily from the political domain which was defined by male thinkers in relation to the public world of productive processes. The reproductive processes were described as including creation and birth and raising children to a status of independence. Curren (2003) suggests that the analogy thus drawn between political theory and educational philosophy is striking in that education is defined in relation to the public world of productive processes, a move that renders the status of women and the family a-educational as well as apolitical. It therefore places them in the so-called ontological basement.
Martin (1985), in her call for a gender sensitive ideal in education, makes the case that by placing women, children, and the family in the ontological basement, these groups are marginalized. They are defined as somehow less worthy or competent and therefore given the kind of education that prepares them for roles of less substance and significance than those undertaken by grown men. Male children can ultimately escape their immersion in the ontological basement, but women are unlikely to be able to do so. Martin (1985) recognizes that something gender sensitive is not necessarily gender-based. By looking at the training and lifestyles of Plato's guardians as depicted in The Republic, Martin (1985) argues that there is no reason to conclude that women could not participate in such an educational system and every reason to believe that they should participate in the kind of education that will prepare them fo...