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Gender issues in greek mythology gender
Gender issues in greek mythology gender
Gender roles in greek mythology
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Is femininity in mythology? Yes because there is a division between men and women in mythology. Biology tells us that we are two different people. Men and women see the world in different ways. Women are passive, intuitive, submissive, and subjective. Women value love, communication, beauty, and relationships. Men are aggressive, rational, dominant, and objective and they value power, competency, efficiency, and achievement. The ways we see the world are different because we are either man or women. We are also similar as well as different. This paper will discuss the how women/goddess are viewed in the works of “Works and Days”, “Theogony” and “Hymn to Demeter.” And see that these women/goddess similar to real life women.
In the Works and Days, women are seen as beautiful things and men strong and fighting creatures. Zeus, the king of gods, had Hephaestus fashion a woman endowed with everything, which he called Pandora. Pandora is described as a sweetly seductive female and her name refers to the gifts that all the gods give to mankind. She is made as a tempting snare for Epimetheus. She was sent with an urn full of plagues as a gift to Epimetheus. Pandora opened the jar and out came all the plagues and finally hope. This woman reminds men that not all-beautiful things are good and can be a pain in a man’s side. This lesson can be true for the world today. Women are not all sweetly seductive but they can be a real pain in the ass, especially for their boyfriends.
In the Th...
Expectations versus environment has been an ongoing argument on which has more effect on a destiny. However, environment has much more effect in a destiny. It is nearly impossible not to see this play out in today’s society. “The Other Wes Moore” by Wes Moore is a prime example of how environment overrides expectations when it comes to creating a destiny. This book is primarily about two boys with the same names but incredibly different fates that were predetermined by their uncontrollable environment. Wes Moore(a) grew up to fulfil a role in the U.S. Army and write a book. Wes Moore(p) sealed his fate by committing a felony and earning a life sentence in prison. Environment runs through primary lives, late teens, and early adulthood each playing a specific role in the predetermination of a destiny.
Gender plays a role in literature, often reflecting the culture at the time of their creation. In such cases, it is also easy to tell the expectations of men and women in society. Gender roles in the works The Odyssey and The Epic of Gilgamesh are similar to which there is an obscure line between the two genders. Although most women are presented as maternal figures in both works, they are mainly seen as tools at the disposal of men.
The Role of Women in Greek Mythology In learning about the feminist movement, we studied the three articles, discussed and reviewed the different authors perspectives on the topic, and learned how important the role of woman in Greek mythology is. In presenting the feminist theory to the class, we analyzed the three articles, Women in Ancient Greece; Women in Antiquity: New Assessments; and Women in Greek Myth, and discussed how although the three articles provided different views on Feminism in mythology, they all essentially are aiming to teach the same basic concept. In order to understand the feminist theory, we have to understand the notion that although myths are invented and that they involve fantasy, the concept of mythology does not necessarily imply that there is no truth of history in them. Some of the humans may have lived while some of the events may have taken place. Most importantly, the social customs and the way of life depicted in the myths are a valuable representation of Greek society.
Yet, despite the fact that no two women in this epic are alike, each—through her vices or virtues—helps to delineate the role of the ideal woman. Below, we will show the importance of Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa, Clytaemestra, and Penelope in terms of the movement of the narrative and in defining social roles for the Ancient Greeks. Before we delve into the traits of individual characters, it is important to understand certain assumptions about women that prevailed in the Homeric Age. By modern standards, the Ancient Greeks would be considered a rabidly misogynistic culture. Indeed, the notoriously sour Boetian playwright Hesiod-- who wrote about fifty years before Homer-- proclaimed "Zeus who thunders on high made women to be evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil (Theogony 600).
This paper will discuss the well published work of, Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975. Print. Sarah B. Pomerory uses this book to educate others about the role women have played throughout ancient history. Pomerory uses a timeline to go through each role, starting with mythological women, who were called Goddesses. She then talks about some common roles, the whores, wives, and slaves during this time. Pomerory enlightens the audience on the topic of women, who were seen as nothing at the time. Men were seen as the only crucial part in history; however, Pomerory’s focus on women portrays the era in a new light.
While in Theogony it only describes the beauty, Athena gave her. I think Hesiod does this because in Theogony, he later explains how evil women is to men. In the description of the woman he wanted to show how different women would look from man, in Theogony he is telling the background stories so he must tell his reader how this woman looks like and emphasis more on her beauty and how that would capture a man. While, in Works and Days his speaking to his brother and he probably knows how that woman looks like and so he emphasizing more on how she was created evil, how the gods and goddess design her to be evil. In this poem, Hesiod tells us her name Pandora while in the other poem he does not. I think this is like this because in Theogony women is the embodiment of evil. She is more of a symbol, Theogony is meant to tell us how things came about and what things are. While in Works and Days the woman was design as someone who will ruin mankind not exactly classifying all women as being the evil but instead being descent of the one who ruin mankind. She was the tool made to unleash all the evils in the world. I think Hesiod did this because his explaining to his brother Prometheus reckless actions leads to the
She places in people the desire to have sexual relations and causes fear in men of the power of seduction by women. Her marriage to her husband was ignored as she had affairs with immortal and mortal men. Her infidelity in her marriage places her on the side with Greek men, rather than Greek women because only Greek men were able to cheat on their wives; not the other way around. In conclusion, the three important rules discussed in this paper that Greek women were required to obey, can be seen in the myths of the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Whether or not the Greek goddesses obeyed or did not obey these rules, their importance to the Greek culture is ever strong.
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...
This makes sense because Wes(a) explains his experience at Valley Forge as, “... leadership was honored and class clowns were ostracized…” If a level of authority expects a certain standard of you, you are inclined to uphold that standard for them. Expectations are exercised universally as well on the streets of Baltimore where Wes(p) grew up. His older brother, Tony Moore had high expectations for Wes that were unfortunately never fulfilled; “If you will not listen that is on you. You have the potential to do so much more, go so much further. (Moore 72)” The expectations that others have set for you no doubt affect you it is just a matter if you are willing to live up to them. That which is expected is what happens. It is not just kids on the streets that have expectations placed on them it is also kids in the classroom and in government offices; “I learned that the way governors projected the numbers of beds they'd need for prison facilities was by examining the reading scores of third graders. Elected officials deduced that a strong percentage of kids reading below their grade level by third grade would be needing a secure place to stay when they got older. (Moore 54)” Governors expect children reading below a third grade reading level to automatically end up in prison later in life. This is very over exaggerated because
In the 1930s, who would have perpetrated violent acts against women in the name of sexual gratification yet still hold expectations that women take care of them? By making men in general the placeholder for “you” in the poem, it creates a much stronger and universal statement about the sexual inequality women face. She relates to women who have had “a god for [a] guest” yet it seems ironic because she is criticising the way these women have been treated (10). It could be argued, instead, that it is not that she sees men as gods, but that it is the way they see themselves. Zeus was a god who ruled Olympus and felt entitled to any woman he wanted, immortal or otherwise.
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.
Women have given birth to new generations for centuries and have the common stereotype of being caring and gentle. But in the creation myth, women were given to man as a punishment. In the book of collected Greek tales, " Mythology Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes", by Edith Hamilton, women take up important roles that shape each story. Although women are usually characterized as being helpful and motherly, Greek mythology, on the other hand, portrays them to cause distress, fear, and anxiety to numerous men. Women’s actions are shown to be influenced with jealousy and vengeance which gives them an evil nature.
Finally, there are the goddesses. They represent women in all their glory. They are very human-like in that they feel the same emotions like jealousy, anger, pride, revenge, excitement, joy, compassion, etc. The exception being that they have supernatural powers. Homer even makes then human-like to the extent that they fall in love with mortals, for instance Calypso.
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.
Cyberbullying is becoming more and more frequent amongst the younger generation. Teens are becoming very much equipped with technology and they’re using it for all the wrong reasons. Historically, people have known about bullying for an interminable amount of time, but nothing has been done about it. A bully is a person that continuously puts others down by using slander. Although it is true that there are punishments for these actions, schools are not doing enough, as well as the community in general, to prevent the issue entirely.