Aphrodite Gender Roles

In ancient Greek mythology gender roles hold large importance in the stories being passed down from generation to generation. In The Hymn to Aphrodite and the Hymn to Demeter, both women are seen as cunning, but also powerful goddesses who challenged the gender norm of women being the weaker sex. Both stories share similarities and differences between one another. Aphrodite is the goddess of pleasure, beauty and love. In her hymn she is able to deceive and dominate the minds of all gods and goddesses except Hestia, Athena and Artemis (Lopez 357). In the story Aphrodite involved Zeus with mortal women, so to get back at her Zeus’s casted a desire in her heart for her to be joined with a mortal man (Lopez 358). After Zeus’s casts his spell, Aphrodite deceives Anchises by telling him she was the

Demeter fits the mold of the perfect mother, she is loving to her daughter Persephone and takes care of Demophoon even though he is not her child. In the story Persephone is kidnapped by Hades, with Zeus’s permission, Hades makes her his lawful wife (Lopez 481). Helios informs Demeter that her child is missing, but tells her its a good match and not to worry about her daughter. Demeter then disguises herself as an old mortal woman and gets asked to take care of Demophoon (Lopez 483). The mother of Demaphoon, Metaneira says “‘ I have guessed you are surely not of base parents but noble ones; respect and grace are evident in your eyes’” (Lopez 483). In this quote Demeter is able to trick the mortals to believe she is one of them, thats why she is able to take care of Demophoon. Notice that Metaneira refers to her as if she was a mortal, by assuming her parents are noble. One should also see that Demaphoom can be seen as a replacement for Demeter’s daughter Persephone. Demeter fits the gender role of a woman in this aspect, she is able to actually take care of her child and nurture another child who is not her