Though Homer’s Goddesses were very strong females, I believe that Homer had a more sexist view of women than his contemporaries. It is easy to look at Homer’s portrayal of Athena and Hera and say that he was an early feminist. But the key is to look at other Greek mythology written by an assortment of writer to truly see how women were viewed. Though many of the myths passed down to us today are centered around men, there are quite a few with strong females. Atalanta was a famous huntress. It was said that her skills surpassed all of her male counterparts. She was always looking for adventure. For that very reason many men wanted to marry her. She could have settled down and had a nice easy life and raise a family like a good wife, but she did not. She did everything in her power to remain single, loving the freedom she had without a man. It took nothing short of the goddess of love to get her to marry, and even then she could not be persuaded to love the man she married. Another strong woman was Daphne. Her father, the river god Peneus, had showed her handsome men who had all tried to woo her. She asked her father to not make her marry. Not even Apollo could change her mind. When he saw her and began to chase after her, she was willing to be transformed into a tree in order to keep her freedom from men. Those are just two of the many strong women in mythology.
Homer’s (human) women were very different. In the Iliad, the women of Troy are barely considered human. They are treated as possessions, something to be taken from a ransacked town. Achilles even gives away a woman for a grand prize during funeral games for Patroclus. There is never any mention of them other than something to be fought over. In The Odyssey there is also the double standard. Both Penelope and Odysseus are considered to be faithful to each other, but after a closer look you see that Odysseus was with many other women for years and years, while Penelope has been sobbing every night for him, having to put up with suitors that she could easily get rid of by saying she would marry one. Homer’s women were very different from other myths of the time. These examples show that even though Homer’s goddesses were very strong females, when it came to the human race he is just another sexist.
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2 comments:
I agree with you in that the goddesses had to be exulted because they had so much power. I disagree with you in that he barely considered the women as humans. I think that he did show some signs of sexism but he also portray the women as kind, loyal people with rights (as he does with Penelope).
Although I can't disagree with your claim, "Homer had a more sexist view of women than his contemporaries," I disagree with some of the points your blog seems to be making. First of all, I disagree with the fact that Homer was sexist, as your article hints at. Just because he didn't have abnormally intelligent or strong women doesn't mean he was a sexist. Also, Odysseus was with other women, yes, but he couldn't do anything about it, the gods put him with them as in the case with Circe.
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