To Wise Tiresias Gender Analysis

Male Dominance over the female gender has been prevalent ever since the beginning of the common era and is just recently starting to change a little. Males dominated every aspect of life except in the household and tending to the children; that was the female’s jobs. One argument that will be made is that men had overall power and rule over women in what happens around them. The second argument that will be made is the significance of the females roles and the duties and hardships they had to endure throughout their lifetime. The third argument is the similarities and differences between these two genders and their roles in the myths that come out of this book. Women’s decisions in everyday can be overturned by any male at any time because

the women are supposively inferior during this time period. A Before Common Era Roman mythological author, Ovid, uses gender roles and male dominance in “Metamorphoses” in order to argue the importance of each character’s duty, or role, in each one of the myths to his unknowing, interested audience, who are completely oblivious, and have no real understanding, to what is occurring during this time period.
Men controlled almost every aspect of life in this time period; they controlled: all the decisions that were made, all the laws that were made, enforcing the laws that they made, all the jobs that created profit to support a family, etc. All during this time period in these myths, the men are doing all the business and actions to support a family, or a household, while the women stay loyal and tend to what their man gives them. These men can do what they want to women because they have absolute control over what occurs, and the only thing that can stop them is gods and goddesses, or not normal humans. The male’s jobs that they do are not an easy job for ordinary humans, they use weapons, “Our nets and spears/ Drip with the blood of our successful hunting./ To-day has brought us luck enough; to-morrow/ We try again.”(3. 147-150). The way that they are mostly portrayed as very dominant and abusive, but they are also fierce and they know they have to get the job done. Men have to hunt to feed their families so they can survive to live another day. The men have to sacrifice their energy and time to feed people who are not out hunting with them, but instead, sitting inside, cleaning the place up. The men have jobs and goals to reach everyday and they just want to get pampered when they get home because they are tired and sore. They just want someone to tend to their requests and needs. Male dominance is not always a bad thing because they do the man jobs that are needed to have a healthy, normal lifestyle.
Females had a extremely hard life during this time period, their roles and duties was far less significant than the men’s jobs during this time, and they had to endure many hardships throughout the days. Their jobs were to take care of the family, cook food for the man of the house, keep the house clean, and tend to the man’s needs. The women were brutally raped by men and the men had no consequences and they were expected just to deal with it. In Perseus, woman enduring hardships is shown because, “Neptune/ Found her and raped her, in Minerva’s temple,/ And the goddesses turned away, and hid her eyes/ Behind her shield, and, punishing the outrage/ As it deserved, she changed her hair to serpents,/”(4. 797- 801). Even though she was raped by a man and was defenseless, she still faced the consequences. She faced them because men can show their love and affection any way and they will not get in trouble. The problem was the, one, Medusa went into Minerva’s temple and tried to hide, and two, there was a sexual act in this temple that occurred. She faced the consequences because Minerva was angry that this happened in her temple and she needed someone to punish and she could not punish Neptune because he is a god and he did nothing wrong from the roles the males have. Females have to face many more problems and have many harsh duties to do because they are the least important on the social ladder and they need to do their job and satisfy their men and their needs.
There is very few similarities between the roles of males and females, but there is a vast amount of differences between them.

As stated in previous paragraphs, men were superior to women in every aspect of life. These two people were bound together to tend to each other’s needs and help them get through life; love may have also been a factor that played into this but not always. One way they decide the similarities and differences between these two genders is by asking Tiresias, “To wise Tiresias’ judgement: he should know/ what love was like, from either point of view.”(3. 325-326). This provides the idea that Tiresias has felt love from both genders, male and female. When he separated the serpents, his gender was switched over from male to female, so he got to do each gender’s roles and duties. He got to experience how mistreated the women during that time period were and the superiority that the male gender has and how thankful they should be to have that ability. Similarities are that they are both being treated humanely by the other gender, some more than others, but the differences is how they show their love, how they are treated and the physical appearances are different. There is many more differences than similarities because even though they are both humans, the small things are the differences and have a rather big impact on the roles of the

gender.