Objectifying Women In The Iliad

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Women have been treated as less then men since the beginning of civilization. Men were the providers, and women have always been their prizes. This is demonstrated repeatedly throughout history, but is particularly noticeable in the Iliad. The few times that the narration mentions women, it is to report them as a mans prize for something, thus depicting them as objects to be used at the mercy of men. This phenomenon of subjugating and objectifying women continues to haunt society today by placing women into inferior and sometimes demeaning roles. While women have gained some autonomy through feminist movements, society continues to show a resemblance to the past. Marketing and advertising campaigns almost always use the female body to attract …show more content…

Similar to the way that men sexually objectify women, women appraise other women on the basis of their appearance. They look at models and celebrities as comparative objects rather than human beings. They judge other women on their attractiveness and use that as a valuation of them (women objectifying women). Also, with the mass media culture that exists today, women objectify themselves; they internalize other peoples perspectives of themselves and start to judge their self worth on their appearance. This makes them objectify other women because they comparatively judge the character of other women based on their internalized perception of beauty. This relates to mass media in that advertisements distort women’s perceptions of beauty to unattainable levels, which was not a problem during the Iliad which explains why this was not as large of a problem as it is today. Lastly, women were subjugated and objectified differently during the Iliad then they are today. During the Iliad, clear feminine roles existed, women were expected to sit back look pretty and be their mans trophy. They were meant to cater to their mans needs and depend on him to provide for her. Thus, women were thought of as decorations for men, Today there are not clear role for them to be, women can be whatever they desire, and they do not need to depend of men anymore. Women today are independent . They are not seen as decorations or prizes to men anymore, but rather sexual objects for men to look at, and that is the major difference between the way that women were objectified in the Iliad versus how they experience objectification today

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