The Greek Attitude Towards Women as seen in the Works of Hesiod 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. The creation of woman in Greek myth was initially caused by Prometheus’ attempt to outwit Zeus, first by tricking the gods into choosing the less...
Some women are known for the deeds of their sons or husbands, but never for a heroic deed of their own, their personalities, and what they do themselves. It seems the only accomplishment women could achieve was being beautiful. Theseus "had no joy of"(195) the princess Ariadne because she died before this was possible. Homer makes it sound as if Ariadne's life was useless because she did not give Theseus pleasure. The only woman we hear of for a different reason is Klymene, and we only hear of her because she "betrayed her lord for gold."(195) This is the only time we hear of a woman for something she did, and once we do, it is a negative remark. Penelope, Odysseus' queen, is paid attention to only because of her position. Because she has a kingdom, she has suitors crowding around her day and night. Being a woman, Penelope has no control over what the suitors do and cannot get rid of them. The suitors want her wealth and her kingdom. They do not respect her enough to stop feeding on Odysseus' wealth; they feel she owes them something because she won't marry one of them. One of the suitors, Antinoos, tells Telemakhos "...but you should know the suitors are not to blame- it is your own incomparably cunning mother."(21) Even Telemakhos doesn't respect his mother as he should. When the song of a minstrel makes her sad and Penelope requests him to stop playing, Telemakhos interrupts and says to her, "Mother, why do you grudge our own dear minstrel joy of song, wherever his thought may lead.
Myths reveal to us the experiences of women living in the patriarchal society and we gain the symbol value accorded to women and we came to realize what the term "Woman" meant to the ancient Greek man.
Kertzer, J. M. "The Wounded Eye: The Poetry of Douglas Le Pan | Kertzer | Studies in Canadian
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...
The Odyssey: Portrayal of Women How does Homer portray women in the epic, The Odyssey? In order to answer this question you must look at woman and goddesses as two separate groups of people who are "people". This is because they are portrayed in two separate ways. You see, a regular woman like Penelope is looked at as beautiful but has.
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...
According to Aristotle a woman in the ancient Greek world should give “no heed to public affairs”. Her sole purpose was to attend to affairs in the home. Conversely, the male role was to participate in civic affairs, since only men were considered to be citizens (O’Pry, 3). As a consequence it was men who played significant roles in the development of Greek society, with women only functioning in the private realm. All major political, civil, philosophical, judicial, military, economic, medical, educational and artistic roles were carried out by men (Middleton).
In the story of Medea, the author, Euripides, addresses the topics of foreignism and female roles in the ancient Greek society. In the play, Medea, a foreign born woman, marries Jason, a Greek man, and moves to Greece to be with him after leaving her homeland with death and devastation. Then, when their marriage fails, Medea lashes out against Jason, causing her own exile and murdering her children, to which she has no love connection, and Jason’s new wife in the process. The main character, Medea, confirms many of the alleged Greek prejudices against foreigners and creates some prejudices of her own in return. Medea’s foreign roots and misconceptions, as well as her familial and societal atrocities,
Centuries of traditions has enabled men and women to define gender roles in society. Although some critics declare gender roles do not exist today, others believe they do. In society, men and women are defined by gender roles throughout their activities and emotions. A doctor is typically portrayed by a male while women rear the children and cook for the men. However, although still in existence, today these roles are less obvious but tend to have similar meaning when compared to the past. In ancient Greece, women suffered great hardships. Currently, females work, vote, and run for office. In comparison to ancient Greece, these activities are a phenomenal leap from being under the direct supervision of a male husband.
Wright, D., & Hinson, M. (2008). Examining the Increasing Impact of Social Media on the Public Relations Practice. International Public Relations Research, 11, 1-21.
Due to the global spread of printing press in the 16th century, the earliest newspaper was born. According to Bellis (n.d), the earliest paper that published weekly is called Relation in Antwerp. The emergence of the internet created a new age in communication across time and distance, becoming a preferred medium for the newspaper industry. As the internet grew, we start to see printed newspaper circulation has starting to decline in the 20th century (Li, 2006). A digital newspaper is defined as a publication on the World Wide Web. Such site use hypertext mark-up language and other computer assisted graphic devices to present text and graphic containing news information on a computer screen (Gunter, 2003). The support for online newspaper is strong, as the internet offers new opportunities for presentation and news deliveries. Over the years, the digital newspaper industry had grown exponentially and is expanding continuously, it has become a major role in communication and information distribution. In this essay I will examine the difference between digital and printed newspapers,...
Subsequently, it has been divided into the categories of ‘old media’ and ‘new media’. These categories of media are able to characterise the technological and information revolution that altered the structures of the social organisation. It is the incorporation of information and communication technology into our lives that old media is now articulated as mass media that existed before the Internet’, such as newspapers and television to address the general public. The contemporary term of new media provides “on-demand access to content anytime, anywhere, on any digital device, accomplishing this through the vast interconnectivity of the Web” (Vogt, 2011, pg. 17) in which include online newspapers, blogs, and social media. The divided terms of media reflect the paradigmatic shift from a controlled, hierarchical, one-way form of communication to the spatially unbound, centralised, and two-way use of information and communication systems that are gradually incorporated into contemporary
The Internet which is a key ingredient in the recipe of democratization that is weakening dictatorships (Howard, 2011) and a tool empowering previously excluded groups (Mark Poster, 2001), provided people with access to acquiring information and access huge amounts of new and old information from traditional and new types of sources (Beam & Kosicki, 2014). The emergence of Internet, also provided the means for anyone to become a publisher, in addition to giving power to the audience who can find any information to control the messages he wants to be exposed to. New developments in communication have similarly led newspapers and broadcast news to create websites from ...
Mainstream media such as television, radio, newspapers were the primary source of reliable information before the epoch of the internet. However, the situation has changed. The evolution of modern technology in the world today has led to the continuous increase in the methods of practicing journalism. Social and technological advancements have not only improved the pace and content of this field’s practice, but has extended its genre to online or cybernetic journalism. (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2007). News websites most of which are owned by major media companies and alternative websites with user generated content such as social networking sites and blogs are gaining grounds in the journalism field of practice. (Nel, n.d). One of the chief forces affecting the practice of journalism nowadays is online citizen journalists. Nel (n.d) defines citizen journalism as “individuals playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information”. He further adds that “citizen journalism is slowly being looked upon as a form of rightful democratic ways of giving hones news, articles, etc, directly by citizens of the world from anywhere.” One of the major researches conducted in the field of citizen journalism, describes the phenomenon as “individuals who intend to publish information online, meant to benefit a community”, and this information is expected to benefit the audience or the wider population in making decisions for the improvement of their community. (Carpenter, 2010.)
”Political risk” as defined by Ian Bremmer refers to “The probability that a political action (or non-action) alters the expected value of a given economic action or the expected outcome of a government policy” . In layman’s terms, one can construe it as how politics influences markets. So why does it matter? Politics has always influenced markets, and vice-versa. However, according to Ian Bremmer, while “[one] can argue about the speed, or the magnitude of the trends that are happening…The fact of the matter is that politics will increasingly matter more to the markets over time”. The four trends he argues are; the increasing amount of energy coming from u...