Ancient Greek society was highly stratified in terms of gender, class, and ethnicity. These stratifications had tremendous implications for how power was distributed and expressed in Greek society. One of the most notable power differentials, and likely the most severe and immutable, was the difference in status between males and females. Females were categorically prohibited from altering their own status or role, ensuring the perpetuation of patriarchy. Women meditated the patriarchal system by developing spheres of power and command in two realms in particular: the domestic and the religious.
Elite women had access to systems of power that lower class women did not. So bereft of power were the women of the lower classes that their lives were not deemed worthy enough of observation or analysis by Greek historians, scholars, writers, or philosophers. Elite women, on the other hand, enjoyed some treatment by each of these historiographies. Particularly in Sparta, elite women could possess enough status to influence public discourse, as Sophocles demonstrates in his plays like Antigone. Family reputation did have a strong bearing on the relative status of a woman, but generally a Spartan female elite enjoyed tacit, but not explicit property...
The highest pinnacle of a woman's strength was deemed to be her ability to produce a healthy male offspring and survive the ordeal, perhaps to do it again (Xenophon, 4th cent BCE). Male strength on the battlefield was weighted highly, particularly in ancient Sparta. Excluding women from participation in the military precluded half of all Greeks, Spartan or not, from demonstrating their prowess. Yet women were encouraged to develop their athletic strength so that her body would be suitable for childbirth: "the female sex ought to take bodily exercise no less than the male," (Xenophon). Whereas men had an ideal body, the body of the female was inferior and subordinate to men. The female body in Greek myth was linked closely with death because the female body symbolizes the cycle of birth and death (Clark, 2009). Aristotle went so far as to claim that women were…
gender roles in Ancient Greece, as portrayed in Lysistrata Gender roles in Ancient Greece are at the core of Aristophanes' work of drama entitled Lysistrata. This play takes place during the critical time period in which the Peloponnesian War has devastated a significant part of Greece. It is largely satirical in its depiction of gender roles, and portrays men and women at odds with one another regarding a number of
Gender Roles In the world today, the most common way in which human beings probably distinguish themselves is by their gender. All human beings, or at least the vast majority, are born as clearly male or female. Perhaps this is also why this distinction has, since ancient times, served as a factor in human relationships and indeed vast-scale human oppression and even slavery. Indeed, to this day many women suffer indignities
Gender Roles Sex is a biological given. Some animal species have one sex, some have two, and some have more than two. This is interesting to scientists perhaps, in terms of its physical construction. However, gender is what culture 'does' with these distinctions of physiology. Gender is how culture interprets the apparent biological differences between particular human bodies of different sexual anatomy. What does it mean, for instance, that a certain
In ancient Greek culture, homosexuality was generally accepted between males and, depending on the location, only partially accepted between females. These relationships existed because the modern concept of marriage between loving partners was not the norm, and men and women generally remained segregated from each other in society. Marriages became social and political alliances which were made primarily for the creation of legitimate offspring. Love and emotional fulfillment were mostly
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/35.11.3 Thompson, James. "What Athenian men said about women." Women in the ancient world. Revised July 2010. November 15, 2010. http://www.womenintheancientworld.com/whatathenianmensaid.htm Figure 1: Michael Lahanas Figure 2: From the Metropolitan Museum of Art Figure 3: From the Metropolitan Museum of Art Figure 5: Discus thrower Figure 5: From the Metropolitan Museum of Art Figure 6: Metropolitan Museum of Art James Thompson, "What Athenian men said about women," Women in the ancient world, Revised July 2010, accessed November 15, 2010
Moreover, in addition to narrowing the purview of human sexuality to groups within the larger society, the sociocultural aspect examines social norm influences including the effects of external factors such as mass media or politics. These movements can assist in bring about significant and widespread changes in the social norm, such as the sexual revolution and the advent of feminism. Overview of Theory and Practice Theories regarding gender and sexuality date