Oppression Of Women In The Odyssey

Over centuries, Ancient Athenian women were tough to be inferior to men and were seen as second class citizens. The role of women in ancient Greek was considered to be insignificant compared to Greek men. Society created rules to keep women oppressed to create the “perfect women”. Women are supposed to be loyal, obedient, dainty, fearful, a mother, and a wife. Women needed to be obedient daughters and housewives, and remain lower class citizens obligated to the men who owns them. Although the rules held women to a lower status, they refused to be subordinated by men. Women were often written as major characters, revealing insights on how they were treated and thought of in society. Through literary texts such as Euripides’ Medea and Homer’s The Odyssey, women have shown that they will not be imprisoned by the rules their society cast upon them. Women have shown they can be rebels. Oppression did not subdue women, hence why they were able to rise above Greek social domination of the male gender, and the laws and

Like Clytemnestra she is also a villain. She is neither a good daughter, nor a good wife and mother. In Medea, the protagonist Medea has proven women are capable of anything, including murder. Medea has shown that she is able to do anything she chooses to do. Medea have shown, “unlike the typical house wife, she did not in fact need the dowry she complains of to the chorus (232-34); she chose her own husband and has won him by her ruthless deeds. Indeed, she often seems to envision herself, contrary to Greek practice, as an equal or even the dominant partner in the marriage” (Foley 75). She is a strong female rebel figure. Medea is known to be the “negative role of women in Athens” (O’Neal 119). Not only does she betrays her father and brother to give the thrown to her husband Jason, but she also kills her own children because she believes they will not be able to survive once Jason deserts