More handpicked essays just for you.
Essay about how alexander the great expand the greek culture
The impact that alexander the great had on ancient greek civilisation
The impact that alexander the great had on ancient greek civilisation
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Arsinoe of Egypt and Macedon by Elizabeth Donnelly Carney is an analysis of Arsinoe II during the Hellenistic Period of ancient Greece. In this book, readers read about Arsinoe II who is a woman who became a part of the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt. She is known to have promoted gender equality, since other countries outside of Egypt did not think women should be on the same level as men. Especially in Greece, the role of women was to stay in the shadows of the men. In her book, Carney shows how Arsinoe II was able to build a strong reputation for herself through her marriage to Ptolemy II, colleagues and very tight nit family. With her strong reputation was she then able to show the small world at that time that women were capable of being just …show more content…
During his rule, Alexander III greatly changed the social aspects of Greece, which some might think was a source of inspiration for how she and Ptolemy II co-ruled Egypt. His vast cosmopolitan empire helped Alexander III gain the love and trust of Greece, which also resulted in women’s roles to change and for them to become slightly more involved in society. Not a great change, but still change. With this sign of progression, Arsinoe II takes it and runs to the hills; Egypt during the Hellenistic Period is known to have the best gender equality in the world because of Arsinoe’s contributions during her rule with Ptolemy …show more content…
Since the beginning of time, men and women have been competing for the spot of the ultimate sex based on physiological, mental, intellectual and emotional qualifications. We see examples of this in literature, sports and even current events. Arsinoe II is the perfect subject of women empowerment, and her life gives Carney a great example to show how women can be just as powerful as, or even more powerful, than man. Being able to live in many societies, marry many men to eventually swindle her way into co-ruling a powerful country with her husband supports this feminist ideology. Carney’s studies of women and queens throughout history aim to show readers of her works about how the accomplishments of women need to be
As the poems of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight show, women have always had power, yet not as overt a power as wielded by their masculine counterparts. The only dynamic of women’s power that has changed in the later centuries is that the confines and conditions in which women have wielded their power has become more lax, thus yielding to women more freedom in the expression of their power. The structure, imagery, and theme in the excerpts from Beowulf (lines 744-71) and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (lines 2309-30) support the concept of more power in the later centuries, by contrasting the restriction of Wealhtheow and the power she practices in Beowulf with the Lady’s more direct assertion of power in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight five centuries later.
Our evidence concerning the roles of women within the Athenian state comes through a variety of media; historiography discussing aspects of Athenian law and customs, orators, and imaginative literature such as comic and tragic theatre. Scholars in the past have selectively manipulated these different sources in order to support their predetermined arg...
In the Middle Age literature, women are often presented or meant to come off as an unimportant character; which can also reflect on how the author wants the women character represent. Women are usually shunned, have no say or control in what they do; due to what men desire; like Ophelia and Gertrude did in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. But these female characters that I will discuss are women with power, control, and a voice. Majority of the female character’s appearances are made to represent wickedness, evil, or a seducer who challenges a man belief; and does not symbolize perfect women.
Women had very few rights, they lived as prisoners, serving men 24 hours a day. Women were sheltered from society, restricted to their husbands and their husbands houses, crying out for help and justice but there is no one to there to hear their screams. In the play Antigone when the title character had to sneak out of the house to meet up with Ismene. Ancient Greek men ruled a lot like over protective fathers with teenage daughters. Men were also scared of women gaining confidence and begin thinking on their own or worse taking action or speaking out against men, like in the play Antigone where Antigone confronts Creon by burying Polyneices after Creon strictly stated that no one bury him. If someone were to bury him, the whole Polis would stone them to death. When Creon found out that someone buried Polyneices, he did not even consider that it could have been a women that did it.
The achievement of gender equality is one of the most important movements for advancement of society. In the High Middle Ages, however, it was even more challenging to bring such sensitive debate. Christine de Pizan, a highly educated and religious woman, chose an unusual pathway for a woman in her era that she became a writer to support her family. Christine’s work, “The Treasure of the City of Ladies,” could be seen as feminist because she offered a broad view of how an ideal artisan’s wife should be.
“The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It's a girl.’” (Chisholm). Where do women fit in the social order of society today? Many women today fit in the same role as they would have been expected to long ago. Though generally speaking, women have a lot more options today. The male hierarchy still governs most aspects of society, but with many more limitations because women are discovering that they can stand on their own, and have no need for constant regulating from their male counterparts. Patriarchal influences are the base of society. In Antigone Sophocles tells a tale about Greek values and women’s status. Antigone has just witnessed her two brothers kill each other; one brother died defending Thebes and the other died betraying it. Creon’s law keeps anyone from burying the traitor and Antigone is set on contravening this. Conversely, Ibsen’s playwright, A Doll’s House, is a story about an intelligent woman, Nora, who is misunderstood by her husband, Torvald. She takes desperate measures to keep her family intact but in the end wines up going out on her own. As the stories progress the both Nora’s and Antigone’s characteristics become very similar in that they are both rebellious, are subservient to male jurisdiction, and are resolute and strong-willed in their decision.
In my mind, Sonny Carroll’s poem perfectly represents what an empowered woman should be; firm, determined and able to stand on her own feet. The characters of Nora and Antigone, from Henrik Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ and Sophocles’ ‘Antigone’ respectively, completely fit my description of ‘the empowered woman’. As inspiring figures, they left me wondering how they maintained their identities even in their patriarchal societies. What touched my heart the most is the way they fight for what they feel is moral and just instead of following what society dictates. I believe that each and every woman possesses the qualities like ‘the empowered woman’ in Carroll’s poem. Through my essay, I’d like to show how females in both the plays, during the adversities and extremities of time, evolve into empowered women. I believe that the idea of female empowerment, through these characters, inspires fellow women to make names for themselves rather than being labeled or controlled by men.
Women roles have changed drastically in the last 50 to 80 years, women no longer have to completely conform to society’s gender roles and now enjoy the idea of being individuals. Along with the evolution of women roles in society, women presence and acceptance have drastically grown in modern literature. In early literature it was common to see women roles as simply caretakers, wives or as background; women roles and ideas were nearly non-existent and was rather seen than heard. The belief that women were more involved in the raising of children and taking care of the household was a great theme in many early literatures; women did not get much credit for being apart of the frontier and expansion of many of the nations success until much later.
Pomeroy, Sarah B. Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990.
Women in antiquity did not have an easy lot in life. They had few, if any, rights. Surviving early records of the civilizations of antiquity from ancient Greece, Egypt, China, and Rome suggest the diversity of women’s roles differed little from region to region. There were a few exceptions, mostly concerning women of nobility and the city-state of Sparta. Excluding the rare instances mentioned most antique women were generally limited on education, mobility, and almost all possibilities interfering with domestic or childbearing responsibilities. The limited social roles of women in antiquity suggest the perceived c...
In the Middle Ages, the roles of women became less restricted and confined and women became more opinionated and vocal. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight presents Lady Bertilak, the wife of Sir Bertilak, as a woman who seems to possess some supernatural powers who seduces Sir Gawain, and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale, present women who are determined to have power and gain sovereignty over the men in their lives. The female characters are very openly sensual and honest about their wants and desires. It is true that it is Morgan the Fay who is pulling the strings in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; nevertheless the Gawain poet still gives her a role that empowers her. Alison in The Wife if Bath Prologue represents the voice of feminism and paves the way for a discourse in the relationships between husbands and wives and the role of the woman in society.
Because of one affair, and because of one man’s need for more riches and land, tens of thousands of men fought and died. King Agamemnon forced his country into a war because he held women and wealth on a higher pedestal than his men's lives, and his men fought because they considered death in battle to be honorable. Thousands of years ago a ten year war was fought because women, wealth, and war were glorified in society, and today the case is the same. King Agamemnon’s wife, Helen, was said to be one of the most beautiful women ever, but to the king she was a only a trophy.
... Egyptian women were looked at differently than men; their role was that of the nurturer and the caregiver, the bearer of a family’s future. They were just as important to the society as the men. Ancient Egypt was a very complex world, and just as complex was the role that women played in its society. They were not free, but they also were not enslaved. They were vital, but only in terms of their husbands and their children. Egypt offered women a far more free life than the rest of the ancient world. In the end, women played a secondary role to men putting their desires for achievement aside so their husband could be king.
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.
A recent study reported that 6.7% of the top earners of Fortune 500 Companies are women. This number can seem low and discouraging to modern eyes. However, this statistic would probably seem an unimaginable leap forward through the eyes of female characters in historical fiction. Henrik Ibsen, the author of A Doll’s House, offers a glimpse into the restrictions on women in the 1880’s, when the book was written. These include limited opportunities for expression, personal fulfillment, and free will in a male-dominated society. The same restrictions can be seen as early as 440 BC, when Antigone was written. Sophocles, the author of Antigone, goes into immense detail about not only the expectations and roles of women, but also the treatment of women. Both of these authors, Ibsen and Sophocles, show the hardships that many women have endured over the ages. Their literary works offer great insight into the characteristics of Nora and Antigone, the two main characters of the books, who are not only determined, but also independent and brave.