Double Standards In The Odyssey

The existence of double standards has impacted gender roles throughout history. Double standards cause a split in how everyone thinks about men and women. This thinking leads to a false sense of superiority about gender and how men and women work together.
Double standards exist around both men and women. In ancient Greece there are many double standards that have been carried out into the present day now. For instance, the toxicity behind men showing any vulnerability such as crying where as women are seen as more in touch with their emotions and it is more “normal” and “ok” for women to cry or show any sign of sensitivity. Another major example being women are seen as beings for only sexual desire and that sets a standard that any action

Throughout Homer's Odyssey we can see that men specifically Odysseus do not hold themselves to this double standard that they hold everyone else too. Gods and goddesses seen in The Odyssey tend to help Odysseus even after he has been very unfaithful. “ Hard-hearted you are, you gods! You unrivaled lords of jealousy- scandalized when goddesses sleep with mortals,”- Calypso (5.156.130-133). Calypso’s speech draws attention to the fact that Gods have been able to court women/ goddesses and it would have never been a problem but when Calypso tries to court Odysseyus, Zeus immediately forces him to leave her island. Calypso tries to explain how she gave him hospitality and saved him from being stranded, disregarding the fact that she was more holding him hostage than keeping him safe in her hospitality while she forces him to sleep with her. “ So when Demeter the graceful one with lovely braids gave her way to her passion and made love with Iasion, bedding down in a furrow plowed three times- Zeus got wind of it soon enough, I’d say, and blasted the man to death with flashing bolts.”- Calypso(5.156.138-141). Calypso, continuing her speech on the unfair standards held upon the goddesses, she adds how Zeus took it upon himself to make sure that he killed the man that Demeter slept with,

Odysseus thinks he is doing the right thing by killing the maid servants but he is discounting the fact that he willingly slept with Circe and stayed in her hospitality for 1 year. ( “No clean death for the likes of them, by god! Not from me- they showered abuse on my head, my mother’s too! You sluts-the suitors’ whores!”- Telemachus(22.453.487-490). Insisting that these maidservants lack self respect and are disloyal not knowing if they were forced to do something by the suitors. Immediately taking his wife's/mothers side Odysseus and Telemachus brutally hang 12 of the maidservants and they keep the ones that they thought were kind and loyal to Penelope while Odyssseus was