Greek Femininity and Love and Sex

In much the same way that a woman was not held responsible for acts of adultery,

Moreover, the misogynistic Greek culture exemplified significant inferiority complexes towards the ties between women and nature. Women within Greek culture were significantly looked down upon. Their purpose was to serve as child bearers and even then that power is taken away from them in certain points of Greek mythology. For instance, when Zeus is trying to protect his son from Hera, he sows him into his leg and then essentially gives birth to him in four years’ time. In many cases it is shown how threatened the Greek men are by females; to the point that they either blame them for their misfortunes by portraying them as the mistake or fail to deliberate on the female goddesses, as it is in the case of Pandora and Athena. Then the

Between family legacies, traditions, and an abundance of college themed movies, books, and television shows, it would be difficult to find a prospective college student who is not familiar with the idea of “Greek life.” For the purpose of this essay, “Greek life” refers to the system employed by many colleges and universities to establish and maintain fraternities and sororities (primarily dominated by caucasian and economically advantages students). It is important to note the existence of fraternities and organizations outside of this stereotypical “Greek” realm, such as coeducational honor and service based fraternities, though even these are not fully exempt from detrimental practices. Fraternities and sororities are often looked down upon with a negative light for a number of reasons, some of which include dangerous hazing habits and unsavory social scenes. While there certainly are undeniable benefits and negatives within these systems, the biggest effect they have is on gender. “Greek life” in college is unhealthy due to its impact on post-college gender expectations by promoting party culture, encouraging misogyny through ingrained tradition, and indoctrinating women into subservience at an impressionable age.

Although, the women often appears in Greek mythology as dangerous and immoral. In the myths of the Greeks from the earliest poems of the archaic period to the sophisticated dramas of classical Athens, there appears a pervasive fear of women. Female characters of many Greek dramas child killer Medea, the husband killing Clytemnestra, and the mother killing Electra. While these females appeared previously in Greek myth, the Greek authors further explored their characters and displayed their malice in greater depth. As can be seen from myths and drama, this fear as it surfaced in ancient Athens is voicing of the male concern that women are a threat to their masculine society and have the potential to disrupt and destroy

Throughout the course of history until the present day, there were always expectations of what roles each gender had. Presently, there are many improvements in gender roles where our society has become indifferent to a specific role that each gender has to take on. However, in the past, it was a common practice that men and women each had specific roles that it was strictly placed upon each gender to carry out, in order to live up to the standards and perceptions of their societies. The most stereotypical role that women had were to take care of the household, whereas men took care of the business and worked and generally were the head of the family. To expand on gender roles, the examination of the roles of men and women in ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, and ancient Rome all show prominent and depicted roles for each gender.

     Aphrodite is another Olympian Deity who helps show the role of women in Greco-Roman society. Aphrodite was the goddess of sexual desire. I think this showed that women in this period used men’s desire to get things they wanted. In one myth Aphrodite got Zeus to change himself into a swan. Now, who’s supposed to be the most powerful god? This is very similar to the role of women in today’s society. Women usually use men’s desires to get them to do what they want them to. The big difference is that in today’s society many women give into the men and share in desire with them before they are married while in the Greco-Roman society very few women had premarital relations. Women who were not virgins were usually never married and sold into slaves by their fathers (Powell 34).

Social attitudes about “homosexuality” in ancient Rome differed remarkably to those assumptions of the contemporary Western civilization. The Greeks and Romans had no concept of homosexuality or heterosexuality; the ancient world was exceptionally tolerant of homosexuality, or more specifically bisexuality, as these relationships had been present even in Trajan’s reign. Male prostitutes were appropriately common on the streets, however, what was of great consequence within the sexual relationship between two men were age and the status of sexual dominance and sexual submission (Potts). Men were free to take part in sexual behaviors with other men without any perceived loss of social status, provided that the older male of higher status was in the commanding position. This status reflected on ones manhood and masculinity, “the role of the submissive reduced the passive partner to the level of a woman (Potts).” Nevertheless, Men were still expected to have sexual attraction and relationships towards women because virility and procreation were important to Roman

Societies use gender and sexuality to create order, but what is gender? What is sexuality? "Gender is the self and anatomical identity, the norms and expectations that society expects from you" (9/5), and sexuality is "the identity of individuals based on their sexual behavior, identity on who you are attracted to" (9/5). Grecian culture is practiced very widely; two Greek civilizations were formed, the Spartans and the Athens. Athens was a capitalist society, Essentialists argued homosexuality is the same over time, while Social Constructivist argue homosexuality is never the same (9/26). In Athens Greece, sexuality established hierarchies in the way of allowing two males to have a relationship, but one of the males was in charge. Erastes was the lover, typically married with children, whereas the Eromenos was loved. A relationship between an erastes and an eromenos was known as a pederasty and the man couples would go to a phratrie, this was a house where they could drink and socialize (9/26). This established hierarchies because an erastes was an older man, he had more power and was a man of higher class. It was against law for the older man or man of higher class to caught being penetrated; older men generally had facial hair and men of lower classes did not. An image shown in Kuefler can help expand knowledge about sexual practices such as pederasty; these pictures often depict either couples with large age gaps or couples with barley

Back to the topic of sexual fornication we already know their views of it, therefore their views played different key roles in what religious practices they did in both Roman and Greek religion. Men used prostitutes as a safeguard against adultery so this benefited women by making money. Prostitutes practiced prostitution because it was a monetary affair. “A worshipper needed money to buy a cow to sacrifice or to purchase something made of precious metal to dedicate in a temple” (Dillon 183). Women still went to festivals, sacrifices and temples even if they were prostitutes they were not excluded from these religious practices. Vestal Virgins did not perform any sexual fornication outside of marriage because they were to remain in the Virgin state. They practiced this to remain sexual abstinence especially before marriage and outside of marriage because doing such thing was punishable by being buried alive. Vestal Virgins wanted to insure that they were able to bear children; their duty was to keep the fire in the temple of Vesta burning and this symbolized

The Greeks, as other civilizations, used art to portray each stage their society was going through at certain periods of time. So, how did the ancient greeks portrayed gender roles and social statutes through art? I will prove that through the development of art, the ancient greeks, in specific the Minoans demonstrated the social status and gender roles of their inhabitants, as well as the beginning of the creation of their history.

Ancient literature are remarkably sparse when it comes to women. Women never fared well in ancient history and there was never a work that had been specifically devoted to an alexandrian women, not even a queen. Before the arrival of Alexander the Great, Egyptian law made is plausible for some freedom to be given to women. Unlike their Greek cohorts, in Athens for example, Alexandrian women were able to posses, buy and sell property. Having an inheritance was a way in which families knew that wealth remained within the family. Egyptian girls were taught important skills that would help them become into a well organized wife and mother. Unlike the pater familia system in Greece, women were required to agree to a marriage purpose before

Women were only spectators and prohibited from performing in Greek Theatre due to the imposition of gender-discriminatory social expectations – which comprised of the prevailing and preposterous notion of female inferiority compared to their male counterparts. Moreover, this engendered the impression that a women’s purpose was to solely manage household responsibilities, in addition to conceiving and raising children. This ideology was derived and reinforced by numerous influential philosophers who theorised that women were inherently intellectually subordinate to men, thus, they should be inconspicuous and acquiescent. As a result of their degradation of status within Greek society, with the exception of Ancient Sparta, all female roles were

In every facet of life men and women are isolated from one another. Women were intended to stay within the confines of their home, rarely leaving except on special cases. The best Greek woman was one that no one knew about because of the fact that they were never supposed to leave the house. Women were solely intended to be controlled by men and remain in the home to provide for their husbands. In addition women did not bear much value to society, and were not much more than slaves under the wing of a male counterpart. Marriage in the Ancient Greek world also did not bare the equalities we see today. Women were required by law to remain loyal to their husbands and were never allowed to leave the house without his permission. Men on the other hand could have relationships with multiple women or mistresses despite the wife’s disapproval. In The Bacchae we begin to see the contrast between genders when King Pentheus thinks that it is a disgrace for him to have to dress of and disguise himself as a woman. "Do I have to be demoted to a woman?...A woman's costume? No, I won't; I can't"(Bacchae 50-51). Coming from the king, his beliefs reflect that of his people and city of the troubles and negativity women were faced with

The cultural environment for Ancient Romans allowed for married men to enjoy sexual relations with their male slaves without the fear of criticism from associates (Williams, 1999, pg. 3). Homosexuality was not an important issue for Roman people (Williams, 1999) and also Roman men were not encouraged to judge others based on what sexual acts other Roman men participated in whether it involved both males or a male and a female (Williams, 1999). In comparison to Christian values Homosexuality was seen as a foul act. "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination” (Levicticus 18:22). Homosexuality is condemned in the Bible as a sin and it collides with the reproduction between man and

Many recent movies such as Troy, 300, and Alexander address many different topics like race, gender, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation in diverse ways. However, the major varying topics of the three movies is the portrayal of sexuality, which must be clarified. Homosexual contact between males was common in ancient Greek culture. However, because of the contemporary public distress regarding homosexuality, movies tend to keep it out of its content. It is important to understand the similarities between each movie and the historical realities of ancient Greek sexuality. Even more so, the significance of how modern-day attitudes and beliefs have influenced the choices made on screen regarding sexual orientation.