The Pride of Men, Their Prejudice Against Women

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The society of the ancient Greeks in The Odyssey, by Homer, is different than the one that we know today. The currency, transportation, and technology were all different. Another part of society that was also different was gender roles. For instance, women were bound to the home and men were able to do pretty much anything they pleased. Double standards arose—a man could travel by himself and be praised for getting to see the world, while a woman who did the same was berated and reckoned by others as a vixen. The greatest double standard of all in The Odyssey, though—and perhaps the most frustrating—is that men were allowed to go on sexual voyages while women were expected to remain chaste and faithful. Examples of this double standard come from the differences between Odysseus and Penelope, the treatment of the maids in Odysseus’s palace, and the tale of Agamemnon and Klytaimnestra.

One example of this nonsensical point of view is the comparison of fidelity between Odysseus and Penelope. Penelope was described as “mistress of her own heart” (The Odyssey, Book XXIV, L221-223). Even though Odysseus had been gone for twenty years, she did not engage in any intimacy, hoping her husband was still alive. As chaste as she was, though, Odysseus was not. While gone from Ithaka, Odysseus had not stayed faithful to his wife—instead; he was the lover of both Kalypso and Kirke. Even though he had betrayed the most sacred kind of loyalty that is expected in a marriage, Odysseus stated that, “…in my heart I never gave consent” (The Odyssey, Book IX, L37). The action of feeling an emotion such as this, whether it be in the heart or not, is controlled by the brain. If his brain told his heart that this was wrong, could it not have done the same...

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...aimnestra was cruelly berated for her actions: “But that woman…defiled herself and all her sex, all women yet to come, even those few who may be virtuous” (The Odyssey, Book XI, L501-504). Not only does this quote cast a negative view on her, but on the entire female gender—quite a gross over-exaggeration, saying that every girl is evil! It casts a negative view upon those who truly are chaste. The actions of just one person further tightened this double standard.

Looking at Greek society today, it is quite a relief that this view is no longer held. Women aren’t expected to be obedient, mindless, sniveling little creatures. They are able to be independent— they do not have to live up to a standard that men could easily betray. These women are free, no longer subjected to the unfair prejudices that man branded upon them during an ancient, patriarchal society.

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