Women in ancient Greece

I messed up the due dates on two of my essays. Luckily I'm with the DSO and have gotten a one day essay, so I have until Wednsday. But I'm still panicking.

I'm writting an essay on whether or not women were kept under lock and key for hatred, as shown in the play Thesmophoriazuzae, or if they were only inside out of cultural modesty. And yes, this is a women studies class filled with angry feminists--I feel really sorry for the one guy we have in this class!


I have that play, the play Medea, a quote from Aristotle saying women were 'mutilated men', and I know lots of pottery exists showing women at public water houses, or being used viciously up the @ss by men.

I wanted to know if anyone knew anything else I can use. I'm really starting to panic here!


What I'm saying in my essay so far is that Thesmo... was a comedy, and thus not a perfect representation, and that the other plays, like Medea, are all by men for men so also not a perfect representation. But that these do show women as being cunning liers fueled by their sexuality and to be watched.


I believe this is contradicted by the pottery though, as I read an article I'm trying to track down right now, that suggested the images of women going to the water houses were on pots used by women to help them identify with their tasks, meaning women did go outside.


But this is all about aristocratic women, what is known about lower class women? Someone once told me they had more freedome and even worked and sold bread. Meaning that keeping the women inside was all for modesty and making sure you children were legitimate, this is further suported by the fact that all the plays were made and viewed by aristocrats. Unless middle class men could see these too, but I'm not sure about that.


Anything anyone knows would really help me out here and I'd give you a big kiss if I could!


Also, I would like information on women in mythology. Most of my classes are archaeology and my mythology is pretty bad. I mix greek, roman, and norse myths up like it's my religion.


does anyone know any plays, philisophical quotes, or even specific pottery I could reference? I have access to a complete database but it hase hundreds of thousands of things in it and is organised by author so it is really hard to look through. =(.

Dunno much about Thesmo but if you read Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, he mentions a speech by Pericles during a funeral oration. Skip all the way to the end of his speech where in a paragraph he basically says that women should not be talked about and that in fact it is a woman's honour not to be talked about. It seems as though woman were definitely second class citizens, at least in Athens. They had no right to vote, had less rights and were somewhat shunned from public life.

This is not the case in Sparta, since we have accounts from herodotus who claims that Spartan women have TOO MUCH freedom because the men were always either fighting, training or in the Sussiton (male warrior banquets). Women were also in charge of most of the arable land around Sparta which was laboured by the Helots...

About mythology, well you have many Greek godesses: Artemis, Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, the Nereids, Iris and so on. Ironically, a lot of these godessed were given attributes that show strength. For example: Artemis is the goddess of the moon but she is also patroness of hunting and archery. Athena stood for wisdom and protection. She was also the patron goddess of Athens. Aphrodite is the goddess of love and sexuality. Iris was the mother of Achilles. The Nereids were daughters of the titan god Nereus.

There are also other goddesses in the titan pantheon (old gods). Gaia was believed to represent Earth itself and gave birth to the sky (Ouranos). Other titan goddess include: Hecate, Hesperides and Rhea.

I think this is all I can help you with, hope I was of any help.