Re-Queering Sappho's Physical Characteristics Of Women

In poem 49-She was dressed well, Sappho depicts the physical characteristics of a women from a man’s point of view:

Her feet were hidden

under embroidered

sandal straps—fine

handwork from Asia (Sappho, 49).

These depictions are based off of how a woman dresses as well as her role in society. As mentioned in the excerpt Re-Queering Sappho, it talks about how Sappho was a woman author who wrote very masculine. This shows queerness in her writing through playing with masculinity and femininity. Sappho plays with masculinity and femininity through changes in word choice. For example, Sappho uses words feminine words such as “her”, “hidden”, “fine”, “under”, and “Asia” to suggest that women are considered weak and not as important as men in society.

They are considered property to males. The word “her”, suggests that the person’s gender is female. “Hidden” suggests that the women is covering her feelings and thoughts from the world, afraid that she will get in trouble if she says the wrong thing.

“Fine” is a physical attribute of a woman; every man hopes to marry a good looking women. “Under” portrays that males have more dominance/power than women do. “Asia” suggests that women are considered laborers whether it is they get payed less but do more work than men or they are the person who carries the child during pregnancy. On the other hand, Sappho uses masculine words such as “embroidered”, “straps”, and “handwork”to suggest that men are considered the “dominant” gender. “Embroidered” resembles decorative; usually a king wears embroidery. “Straps” resembles a man’s power physically. “Handwork” resembles a man’s physical strength. As a result, we can see that Sappho brings up very important roles of both men and women in society. Women are seen as powerless individuals while men are seen as powerful individuals.  an important issue of women's inequality by describing women as powerless and used as an object rather than a human being. Based on the Sappho poem, the author from the article “Re-Queering Sappho” feels importantly about this issue of Sappho’s queerness in her writing. The author admires Sappho’s cleverness

to make the writing seem more masculine to portray a traditional ancient greek actor who is man acting as a women. Sappho’s change between masculine and feminine, makes her poems unique and interesting to read.