Sexism in Greek Mythology
- melissaliu2007
- Apr 6, 2024
- 11 min read
The Greek poets Hesiod and Ovid wrote myths that typically revolved around the valorous acts of a hero who possessed a great deal of bravery and honor. These stories were a source of inspiration to ancient Greeks, providing them with heroes to admire and lessons to remember. The myths not only instilled into Ancient Greek society a concept of heroism, but also the concept of ethos, or “character.” Ethos was the guiding belief that characterized how people in Ancient Greece should behave. These moral lessons, however, frequently placed women at the root of tragedy and calamity and compelled women to conform to very rigid restrictions of behavior. Greek myths could impart wisdom, but they were also fundamentally misogynistic, with women depicted as cunning and antagonistic, bent on destroying the heroic men in these tales. If a woman was not the villain in a myth, then she was the mother or wife of the hero, upholding the traditional roles that Greek women were allowed to follow. Heroes were praised for their adventures, but women in Greek myths were expected to stay at home and perform their duties as wives or mothers. Despite the fact that the venerated Greek heroes were usually arrogant, selfish, and unfaithful and committed brutal acts, the Ancient Greeks respected these heroes while downplaying the courageous acts of women or blaming them for the hero’s trials. Moreover, women were often attacked for their beauty, curiosity, or independence and blamed for the fact that men and gods could not control themselves. Although Greek myths endorse women’s roles as wives and mothers, those myths rarely allow for any positive characterizations of women outside those roles while the Greek myths praise deeply-flawed men for their heroic deeds, the stories villainize, victim blame, or construct identities for the women in the stories, leaving the women with little power despite their heroic acts or attitudes.
Medusa is one of the most famous Greek myths in history, but perhaps the most misunderstood as she is hated and eventually killed for simply defending herself. The story of Medusa, a myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, described her as a high priestess who had taken a vow of chastity to serve the goddess Athena in her temple. Medusa was noted for her beauty, particularly her luxurious hair. Unfortunately, the god Poseidon soon noticed Medusa and tried to seduce her. When Medusa heroically rejected Poseidon’s advances, he chased her into Athena’s temple and sexually assaulted her. Enraged at this violation of her sacred space, Athena blamed Medusa for the rape, cursing her by turning her hair into “foul snakes” and changing Medusa into a gorgon, a creature so repulsive that anyone who looked at her would turn to stone, “so that [the violation] might not go unpunished”. Although Medusa had been raped by Poseidon, he receives no punishment; instead, Medusa, who has done nothing wrong, is cursed by Athena. Greek myths commonly blamed women for rapes, subscribing to what is now referred to as rape culture, a system in which rape is normalized, excusing men for the rape and blaming the victim. Medusa is blamed for her assault because Poseidon is a god, male, and justified in his attack because Greek society assumed that he simply could not help himself since he was mesmerized by Medusa’s beauty. Medusa received no sympathy after her rape; Athena turned her into a monster, and Medusa is further victimized by men seeking heroism by killing her. Nowhere in the mythology is there evidence that Medusa ever purposely chased after humans to kill them, she only harmed others in self-defense, which gained her a reputation as a deadly monster. When Perseus went on his ‘hero’s journey’ to kill Medusa, he killed her while she slept: “ And while a deep sleep held the snakes and herself, he struck her head from her neck.” Medusa was defenseless, in “a deep sleep” and decapitated when she presented no threat. Perseus used Medusa’s decapitated head to save his mother—an acceptably traditional woman in Ancient Greek society—and Medusa was villainized and dehumanized. As Classics professor William Duffy states in his article “Medusa as Victim and Tool of Male Aggression, “Medusa is transformed into a tool or weapon independent of her wishes…” Only when Medusa was "transformed into a tool" for Perseus to use for vengeance and his heroic aims, did her punishment and suffering become useful and acknowledged. Although there are numerous versions of the myth, in each of them, Perseus always achieves fame, turns his enemies into stone, or gives Medusa's head to Minerva. Despite having killed Medusa while she helplessly slept, Perseus achieves fame and honor. The Medusa myth established that she was to blame for her villainy and gave Perseus power and ethos, denying Medusa honor and sympathy.
Another popular myth is that of Pandora, a story that provided Ancient Greeks with a moral lesson, yet placed a woman in the role of destroyer. After Prometheus had given mankind fire, Zeus commissioned Hephaestus to create the first woman: Pandora. The gods bestowed her with many gifts but also, “contrived within her lies and crafty words and a deceitful nature at the will of loud thundering Zeus.” Zeus wanted Pandora to be deceptive, so that he could manipulate her. The gods purposefully made the first woman dishonest, born to tell, “lies and crafty words.” The creation of Pandora implied that all her female descendants will have “a deceitful nature,” but Pandora had no choice. After the gods had given Pandora all these gifts and flaws, she was sent to Epimetheus, Prometheus’ brother, to become his wife. Although Epimetheus had been warned not to accept any gifts from the gods, he still agreed to the marriage and welcomed Pandora. The gods sent Pandora to Epimetheus with a jar full of the world’s evils and prohibited Pandora from opening it. Pandora did not know what was inside the box, and eventually opened the box out of curiosity, letting all evil fly out with only hope remaining inside, as the lid had been shut before it could escape. As a result, mankind would now experience plagues, negative emotions, and many diseases. Pandora’s curiosity caused mankind to fall from paradise, according to Zaid Ismael and Sabah Ali’s “Opening the Box of Suffering, Unleashing the Evils of the World; Pandora and her Representation in Nineteeth-Century American Poetry,” Pandora “established a common patriarchal belief among people that views women as frail and impulsive creatures liable to temptation and destruction.” The Pandora myth cemented the belief that women were villainous creatures who caused destruction. The Greek myth about Pandora did not criticize the gods for dooming Pandora to her fate, but made her a scapegoat for the pettiness of the gods, embedding into Greek culture a misogynist attitude towards women that made them the root of all evil.
The Greek myths consistently blamed women for their own beauty or ambition—as evidenced by the Medusa myth—and for their own natural curiosity, just as in the Pandora myth. The myth of Cupid and Psyche showcases these forms of victim-blaming as well, illustrating how far the gods, especially the female gods, who seem to be victims of the misogynous nature of Greek culture just as much as human women, will go to punish Greek people in petty ways. Princess Psyche was a very beautiful woman, even more beautiful than the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite. Soon, people stopped paying respect to Aphrodite, which angered her, so she sent a plague to Psyche’s kingdom, and declared that the only way to stop it would be to sacrifice Psyche. To placate Aphrodite, Psyche was sent to be killed by a sea monster, but Cupid, the god of love, saved Psyche and married her instead. However, Cupid warned Psyche to never look at his face, and he only visited her at night. When Psyche’s sisters learned she was alive and visited her, they were jealous of her wealth and convinced Psyche to look at Cupid’s face while he slept. Once again, the women in Greek myths are characterized as petty. When Cupid discovers that Psyche had broken her vow, he fled back to his mother Aphrodite, who is angered greatly that Cupid had found love, exclaiming, “Come tell me then…the name of the creature that’s seduced a simple innocent child,” Cupid has no agency and receives no blame; Aphrodite blames Psyche for her natural curiosity to know her husband’s identity, the man she has married and with whom she is intimate. In Aphrodite’s eyes, her “simple innocent child” could never have wanted a relationship, and Psyche must have “seduced” Cupid. Aphrodite compelled Psyche to complete four trials to gain Cupid back. During the first trial, Aphrodite had “ beat[en] [Psyche] round the head and dragging her about by the ear, crying: ‘So you deign to call on your mother-in-law at last, do you?’” Aphrodite brutalized Psyche, punishing her for marrying Cupid, but likely out of jealousy of Psyche’s beauty and her understandable curiosity. Aphrodite harbored negative feelings towards Psyche, and instead of supporting her, treated Psyche as a slave. The female gods in Greek myths did not support other women, but vented their frustration at the misogyny they experienced within their godly hierarchy by punishing human women. The female gods and human women had power only within the traditional confines of Ancient Greek society; the female gods’ fears of losing their own powers and their repeated attacks on helpless human women illustrate that even the gods were subject to misogyny. Clearly, human women would not have a chance of challenging the status quo.
Apollo’s Pursuit of Daphne shows the drastic measures a woman often had to take to protect herself in Ancient Greek myths, even to the extent of having to change her identity in order to avoid a man’s ‘affections’. In the Daphne myth, Apollo had been struck with Cupid’s arrow after bragging about his archery skills. Cupid had cursed the arrow, guaranteeing that Apollo would be love-struck with the first person he laid eyes on, which became Daphne, a nymph. However, Cupid had also struck Daphne with an arrow that caused her to become unaffected by love. Once Apollo had seen Daphne and declared his love, she bravely tried to elude him, prompting Apollo to chase her: “[Apollo] driven by desire, [Daphne] by fear.” Apollo was driven by Cupid’s manipulation, but Daphne was driven by pure fear. Daphne begged for help from her father, Peneus, a river god, and Peneus turned Daphne into a laurel tree to spare her from Apollo’s pursuit. As Jourdan Dealy mentions in his “What Could She Say?: The Problem of Female Silence in Ovid’s Metamorphoses,” article, “Daphne’s last moments as a nymph are filled with fear and horror as she is transformed into the Laurel.” Daphne’s only recourse was to have her identity transformed; she did not have any power to save herself. After her transformation, Apollo still did not give up his pursuit exclaiming, “Fairest of maidens, you are lost to me. But at least you shall be my tree. With your leaves my victors shall wreathe their brows. You shall have your part in all my triumphs. Apollo and his laurel shall be joined together wherever songs are sung and stories told,” Cupid and Apollo had not only terrorized Daphne, compelling her to completely change herself, but Apollo took control of Daphne’s new form. The myth declares that Daphne was “lost to [Apollo],” yet he still retained ownership of Daphne by calling her “[his] tree.” Apollo did not allow Daphne to escape from him and forced her to “have [her] part in all [of] [Apollo’s] triumphs.” Apollo forced a new identity and association upon Daphne, using Daphne’s transformation to his own ends, making her identity an eternal part of him.
The Greek myth Echo is yet another example of the misogyny that runs through all of the Ancient Greek myths and the ways in which the gods—male and female—manipulate and abuse women. According to the myth, when Zeus was being unfaithful to his wife Hera, he ordered Echo to talk to Hera and distract her, so that Hera would not discover Zeus’ affairs. Once Hera discovered Zeus’ plot, she cursed Echo, exclaiming, “I shall give you less power over that tongue by which I have been deluded…” Hera takes away Echo’s ability to speak, allowing her to only repeat the words that others say. Instead of punishing Zeus for his constant infidelities, Hera punished Echo, who had had no choice but to obey Zeus. Hera could not punish Zeus directly because he is the king of the gods, so Hera projected her anger onto Echo, punishing her by taking away what limited agency Echo had: the power of speech. After her punishment, Echo became enamored with a boy named Narcissus. After Narcissus rejected Echo, she fled in shame and hid in a cave, yet, “[Echo’s] love endures, increased by the sadness of rejection.” Even after Narcissus’ rejection, “[Echo’s] love endures,” and becomes an obsession. . The myth reduces Echo to a woman who cannot live without the love of Narcissus, and eventually, “Her sleepless thoughts waste her sad form, and her body’s strength vanishes into the air.” Echo withered away, and she became an echo, a remnant of Hera’s curse. Echo had no voice, no power of her own, and her identity only existed in association with Narcissus; without him, Echo slowly “withered away.” Leo C. Curran states in his “Women in the Ancient World” article that Echo is “an appendage of [Narcissus], totally dependent upon him, literally hanging upon his every word…” Echo’s only roles were as a scapegoat for Zeus and as a ‘worshiper’ of Narcissus, and apart from him, Echo had no importance. Her myth constructs an empty identity for Echo that is voiceless and merely an extension of a myth centered around the vain Narcissus. Echo was not given any positive characteristics, faced misogyny from her own goddesses, and was reduced to nothingness because of her obsessive love of Narcissus.
Women in Greek myths were assigned the roles of wives or mothers, and those who did not subscribe to the standards of these roles were punished; while heroes were honored for their valor, women in Greek myths were rarely praised for their fortitude or honor. The women are blamed for other individual’s actions, have identities forced upon them, and not allowed to have any agency despite their innocence and bravery. Ovid and Hesiod wrote many of the Ancient Greek myths, but recent interpretations, written by women, provide new, refreshing perspectives of the women in these myths. In her novel Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood focuses on the women in the Odyssey, portraying them as bold and strong, instead of focusing on Odysseus himself. Atwood’s protagonist Penelope has traditionally been portrayed as the perfect wife: faithful, patient, and submissive. However, the Penelope in Penelopiad is not just a faithful wife, but also a strong woman who is able to defend her kingdom from constant suitors. The maids, victims of sexual assault and murder, demand justice. In Antigone’s Claim, author Judith Butler re-interprets the meaning of Antigone’s defiance. Butler explores Antigone’s agency and honor in Oedipus, giving Antigone credit for defying social norms and having the willingness to die for her honor. One of the reasons that the Ancient Greek Myths have survived for so long is because they are endlessly fascinating and entertaining. They provide a window into Ancient Greece and deserve to be enjoyed; acknowledging the misogyny inherent in the myths does not have to destroy how much pleasure they bring to readers. The characterizations of women in Greek myths are another important window into understanding the past.
Works Cited
Apuleius, Lucius. The Golden Ass. Translated by A. S. Kline. n.p.: Poetry in Translation, 2013
Curran, Leo. C. “Women in the Ancient World.” Arethusa 11, No. 1/2 (Spring and Fall 1978): 213-241
Dealy, Jourdan. “What Could She Say?: The Problem of Female Silence in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.” Bachelor diss., University of North Carolina, 2015.
Duffy, William S. "Medusa as Victim and Tool of Male Aggression," Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice: 7, no.1 (February 2020): 1-14
Hesiod. Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica. Translated by Evelyn-White, H G. London: William Heinemann, 1914.
Ismael, Zaid Ibrahaim, and Sabah Atallah Khalifa Ali. “Opening the Box of Suffering, Unleashing the Evils of the World’: Pandora and her Representation in Nineteenth-Century American Poetry.” Journal of Language Studies 3, no.4 (Summer 2020): 100-108
Ovidus, Publius. Metamorphoses Book IV. Translated by A. S. Kline. Virginia: Univ. of Virginia, 2000.
Ovidus, Publius. Metamorphoses Book I. Translated by A. S. Kline. Virginia: Univ. Of Virginia E-text center, 2000.
Ovidus, Publius. Metamorphoses Book III. Translated by A. S. Kline. Virginia: Univ. Of Virginia E-text center, 2000.
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