Women's Roles In The Odyssey

In the epic of Odysseus, the story tells us about how men and women play very different roles in greek culture. Women can have very powerful roles that range from goddesses to Queens. Many times in this epic, they display that they have control over men and they can influence a man to do anything they want. But men have different views on different classes of women and they shift the power back and forth between men and women. When a man and woman marry, the women is expected to be loyal to him when he is away. But the same thing is expected of the men. Women and men play very different roles but both genders are equally important in the greek culture.

In the Odyssey, Athena and Helen show us how women can play very important roles in ancient greek culture. When Odysseus is trying to get back

Goddesses like Athena are praised and worshipped every day because she’s smart, wise, and beautiful. Penelope is seen as an attractive queen. She’s respected because she’s in a position of power and because she’s a coveted women and many men want to marry her. But normal class women and maids are seen more as objects. They are used to pleasure the men and keep them happy. They also must do the simple work like clean, and weave, and do tasks that anyone else wouldn’t want to do. “Tell these women who were the suitors’ harlots to come here.” (XXII, 482) Here, Odysseus is telling Eurykelia to bring all of the maids who “flouted him”(XXII, 475) to come down to the hall to clean all of the bodies up after he murdered the suitors. He then kills the 12 maids because they were unfaithful to him. But if Penelope was unfaithful, he wouldn’t have killed her because she’s holds an important role. In the Greek culture, Queens and Goddesses were treated very well because of their position, but maids don’t get any special treatment from the higher ranked people. They aren’t respected nearly as much royal