Fig. 7. Even while all of these scholarly writers held women with contempt, all but Aristotle wrote praises of the lustful god Pan.
Conspicuously, Aristotle persists as not the only man that assesses females with such negativity, for various writers, and philosophers, such as Homer, Socrates, Plato, along with numerous other ancient writers, believed that women were the weaker, inferior sex, and essentially lacking. Concurrently, Socrates contends that being born a woman transpires as a divine punishment, since a woman exists as halfway between “a man and an animal.” Simonides, a writer, portrays women with features as different types of animals that symbolize the forces of chaos. This pompous view of women as only sex objects and baby-makers
…show more content…
Specifically, one of his writings called, On the Diseases of Virgins, became a work in the Hippocratic Corpus, that addresses the virgin’s disease, or ‘morbus virgineus;’ an alleged illness that afflicts ‘parthenoi.’ Hippocrates professes symptoms that include poor coloring, swelling, difficulty breathing, palpitations, headaches, and other problems; at the same time, the most outrageous concern involves ‘a female’s menstruation …show more content…
Appallingly he alleges that a woman becomes restored to health when the blood finds its passage out of the body after intercourse; obviously losing her virginity and soon thereafter becoming pregnant. This preposterous belief inferred that virgins yielded to this sickness for the reason that their wombs had not experienced their intended purpose and due to this disuse illness took place. Undoubtedly, the local priests encouraged this same nonsense. In like fashion, this revolting assumption effectively supported Greek society’s rationale that emphasized “the weakness of women and their narrow purpose.” This added to the long list of various supposed illnesses that could befall virgins. In due course, this conclusion by men became the standard adopted thinking that young girls should become married as early as possible to ensure pregnancy, allowing health to continue. Consequently, this ongoing demeaning spirit towards women and girls locked in an everlasting existence of hardship of pregnancy for them, (countless times killing them) through continuing centuries to
In Ancient Greece, women had little to no freedom in their lives. For instance, they had no role in politics, leaving that completely to men, were expected to stay indoors for the majority of their lives doing household work because they were under the control of a male relative, usually being their father or husband, and they were not allowed to study medicine. These standards were set by great writers such as Aristotle who wrote of women being inferior to men. He believed women were more emotional, which is why they would be useless in politics, and they were more deceptive and mischievous. Because only men were doctors, many women were dying during childbirth due to the fact that they felt uncomfortable about having a man handle their pregnancy.
Hesiod leaves no doubt that the existence of women is on balance a terrible thing for men. Zeus ordered Hephaistos to create women as a punishment for his having been decieved.. Women were to be a poisoned gift for men, which "all shall take to their hearts with delight, an evil to love and embrace" (W&D, 57-59). In the Theogony women are called "a great plague" because they are "ill-suited to Poverty’s curse, but suited to Plenty" (592-93), among other flaws. While Hesiod offers some well-turned phrases in praise of womens’ good qualities, it is unmistakable that these positive attributes are all put there by Zeus for the sole purpose of making woman an "inescapable snare" (589). Women are attractive, they have useful skills and, they provide progeny to help men in their old age, but these qualities are only to prevent men form avoiding the punishment that she brings.
Cole's article is not to attack Aristotle on his views of where a woman should be placed within the social and political order, in accordance to the Classic Greek period. Her intrigue is within "surveying some central values of that particular social and political institution," (Sterba 79). At first she begins with Aristotle's view on gender and class in ethics. Making a definite point among the social/political class, ancient Greek women and slaves were only allowed their male citizens to think for them. Being dependent on men silences the women and slaves without a voice to speak out, for the women work while the men socialize with others, the men assume that the women do not need a voice. According to Aristotle, even a woman's virtue is to be subservient to all males. As a part of common life the woman is considered the pack horse and the mother to raise the children, for the men. With all the work that women put into their specific households, some education and training would mature from the experience. It was thought again by Aristotle within; Deliberation, Education, and Emancipation, that woman did not possess the aptitude for practical reasoning. For whomever possessed practical reasoning carried with them authority on their decisions and the action pending. From these three classic Greek examples of how women were considered mentally and treated physically, the author Cole provides a progressive outlook of how women could have gained social and political power in a society of male dominant figures.
" While this view may have been extreme even for the Greeks, they were convinced of the physical and intellectual inferiority of women. Thus, they believed that it was better for all--the woman included--that a wife should stay in the home far removed from the complicated business of the "man's world."... ... middle of paper ... ...
Although abortion was not a big issue at the time, infanticide, or killing the baby outside the womb after delivery, was a prominent subject of debate, much like abortion is today (1). At the time, this seemed to be a safer way to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. Both Hippocrates, the “father of modern medicine” and Soranos, the “Greatest of the ancient gynecologist,” both opposed abortion, but their reasons for opposition are unclear and could have been for either the protection of the mother or the fetus (1). The more sophisticated medical methods for abortions became, the more they were met with cr...
Works Cited Abbott, Elizabeth. A. A. A History of Celibacy: From Athena to Elizabeth I, Leonardo da. Vinci, Florence, Nightingale, Gandhi, and Cher. 1st ed.
The very creation of women was set as a punishment to man because Prometheus, son of Iapetos, tried to trick Zeus into eating bones and then, with the tube of a fennel, steals fire to give to mankind. Zeus then proclaimed, "To set against the fire I shall give them an affliction in which they will all delight as they embrace their own misfortune." Out of Zeus' anger came Pandora, the first woman. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to mold women from the earth and water, Athene to dress and adorn her, Temptation to give her necklaces of gold, and Hermes to implant a bitch's mind and a thief's temper. Hesiod describes women as a "precipitous trap, more than mankind can manage." Hesiod states, "even so as a bane for mortal men has high-thundering Zeus created women, conspirators in causing difficulty." And thus the first woman was named Pandora, Allgift,-"a calamity for men who live by bread." And so Pandora and all the evils of the world, except Hope, were released into the world by a punishing Zeus. Hesiod explains how formerly the tribes of men lived "remote from ills, without harsh toil and the grievous sickness that are deadly to men." From Pandora descended the female sex, "a great affliction to mortals as they dwell with their husbands- no fit partners for accursed Poverty, but only for Plenty." An analogy is then used to compare women to drones who, according to Hesiod, feed off hard-working bees all day. Hesiod immed...
In addition, women were depicted as symbols of lust, seduction, and evil who bring destruction to men, undermining the true values of women. Furthermore, women were expected to remain loyal to men while men have no expectation for themselves, which promoted gender inequality. Exemplified by these three elements, it is evident that The Odyssey is a misogynistic text depicting a society where women occupy subservient and inferior positions. The Odyssey exemplifies a society organized and controlled by men where males consistently treated women unequally, depriving them of true freedom. Homer’s male characters often saw women as second-hand citizens who had no true voice in society.
When thinking of ancient Greece, images of revolutionary contrapposto sculpture, ornate lecture halls, and great philosophers in togas are sure to come to mind. As the birthplace of democracy and western philosophy, ancient Greece has had an inordinate influence on the progression of the modern world. However, the ancient Greeks’ treatment of women is seemingly at direct odds with their progressive and idealistic society.
In ancient Greek society women lived hard lives on account of men's patriarch built communities. Women were treated as property. Until about a girl’s teens she was "owned" by her father or lived with her family. Once the girl got married she was possessed by her husband along with all her belongings. An ancient Greece teenage girl would marry about a 30-year-old man that she probably never met before. Many men perceived women as being not being human but creatures that were created to produce children, please men, and to fulfill their household duties. A bride would not even be considered a member of the family until she produced her first child. In addition to having a child, which is a hard and painful task for a teenage girl in ancient civilization to do, the husband gets to decide if he wants the baby. A baby would be left outside to die if the husband was not satisfied with it; usually this would happen because the child was unhealthy, different looking, or a girl.
Aristotle believed that women were not fully human due to their lack of heat. He believed this because he though that in conception, women did not have the ability to conduct heat and become the perfect form, male. Aristotle also claimed that nature always strives to create the perfect being, male, and in not doing so, creating female, it made an imperfection. He therefore thought that “woman was the misbegotten man,”(p.19).
Mortal females cause struggles among men and are portrayed as wicked in Greek Mythology. In the story of How the World and Mankind Were Created, the Father of Men and of the Gods, Zeus, swears to get revenge upon mankind because of the poor sacrifices made to the altars. Therefore, he “[makes] a great evil for men, a sweet and lovely thing to look upon… they [call] her Pandora… the first woman… who are an evil to men, with a nature to do evil… is the source of all misfortu...
Her hatred toward Greek women continues as she discusses the fact that she should not have to bear children or have a strong maternal instinct in order to be considered a woman of societal worth. Women should be as important in battle as men are, as she states on page 195 when she says “They say that we have a safe life at home, whereas men must go to war. Nonsense! I had rather fight three battles than bear one child. But be that as it may, you and I are not in the same case.” The gender imbalance in the ancient Greek civilization is greatly upsetting to Medea, creating her mindset that Greek women are weak and simple minded while Greek men are oppressive and inequitable. Medea shares
Semonides of Amorgos (c. 625 B.C.) An Essay on Women ( lines 10-12) Semonides of Amorgos. “Women.” c. 7th cent. B.C.E. Trans. Diane Arnson Svarlien. Web. 7 Oct. 2014
Women were often subjects of intense focus in ancient literary works. In Sarah Pomeroy’s introduction of her text Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, she writes, “Women pervade nearly every genre of classical literature, yet often the bias of the author distorts the information” (x). It is evident in literature that the social roles of women were more restricted than the roles of men. And since the majority of early literature was written by men, misogyny tends to taint much of it. The female characters are usually given negative traits of deception, temptation, selfishness, and seduction. Women were controlled, contained, and exploited. In early literature, women are seen as objects of possession, forces deadly to men, cunning, passive, shameful, and often less honorable than men. Literature reflects the societal beliefs and attitudes of an era and the consistency of these beliefs and attitudes toward women and the roles women play has endured through the centuries in literature. Women begin at a disadvantage according to these societal definitions. In a world run by competing men, women were viewed as property—prizes of contests, booty of battle and the more power men had over these possessions the more prestigious the man. When reading ancient literature one finds that women are often not only prizes, but they were responsible for luring or seducing men into damnation by using their feminine traits.