Examples Of Misogyny In The Odyssey

“Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always,” (Hosseini). As Khaled Hosseini, the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Kite Runner, reflects negatively on contemporary sexual discrimination in Afghanistan, he unwittingly alludes to the harsh misogyny that haunted Ancient Greek societies almost 3000 years ago. Hesiod’s Theogony justifies misogyny by explaining how after Prometheus rebelled against Lord Zeus and bestowed fire upon mankind, “Zeus was stung in spirit” and “made women to be an evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil,” (Hesiod) as punishment to mankind. This sexist belief is further prolonged in Homer’s The Odyssey, in which the arête-seeking protagonist Odysseus returns

For three years, Penelope delays having to accept a marriage proposal from one of her vexatious, lusty suitors by insisting that she must first finish weaving a shroud for Laertes, deceiving them all the while because although “by day she weaved at her great and growing web—/ by night… she unraveled all she had done,” (2:116-118) The term “web” can be linked to spider webs, which spiders spin to ensnare their prey. Similarly, Penelope’s cunning scheme (temporarily) traps the men because her daily destruction of the shroud perpetually keeps the suitors’ permission to court her from being granted. By trapping them, just as the Fates weave the destinies of all mankind, Penelope weaves the suitors’ destinies because the constant balance of progress and regress (daily weaving and nightly unraveling) in the shroud represents the stagnancy of the suitors’ lives. Later, while Odysseus marvels at the grandeur of Alcinous’ palace upon his arrival, he watches the serving women “weave at their webs or sit and spin their yarn / fingers flickering quick as aspen leaves in the wind,” (7:121-122). Because aspen leaves were often deposited on Ancient Greek burials to increase the deceased spirit’s chances of receiving rebirth in the underworld (Woodland Trust), comparing them to the women’s fingers implies that the women are weaving a sense of rebirth into the life of their

Like Prometheus, these fictional women utilize their fate-weaving divinity and Siren-level intelligence to progress mankind while in reality, similarly-characterized Ancient Greek women were helplessly chained by the limits of society. Constantly ignored by men, their enthralling voices were reduced to mysterious, haggard whispers, obscuring their identities but compelling them to quietly observe and decipher the flaws of mankind to the point of omniscience. Homer’s primary female characters quintessentially serve to embody Ancient Greek women in this futuristic state of omniscience, in which they have begun breaking free of their social chains to vengefully ensnare and ravage mankind like Zeus designed them to. For perhaps the first time in history, he inspires in men a formidable fear of