Lies My Teacher Told Me Analysis

Sex Symbols Enslaved

Upon analyzing James Loewen’s book Lies My Teacher Told Me, he makes a valid point of how history is to repeat itself and if one does not learn from it they are doomed to repeat it. He also points out how history is engaging and insightful but changed to fit the norms of today’s society. Take gladiators of Ancient Rome for instance, the bad boys of their time, the ideal man’s man, every man wants to be one and every woman wants to screw one. Why is that, though? In today’s society gladiators are a symbol of strength and sex, they are the stereotypical bad boy that every teenager fantasized about. They bested man and beast and were idolized for their heroism. That, however, should not be the case. Mark Catwright Greek history

One never hears about female gladiators because it is now seen as only a man’s sport and woman weren’t put into roles like that. Women in that world were merely given to the gladiators as prizes after they had a victory to sleep with and return when done, That is not the case, however, women could be gladiators and would fight to their deaths. Woman were not idolized like the men were, but they still competed. According to Mark “As women in Rome were not thought to be men 's equal, and their public, if not always private, lives strictly regulated, the female gladiator could never achieve respectability, no matter how great a warrior she was” (Mark). Why romanticize historical figures that are known for bloodshed, tyranny, and death? Why does nobody know that there were female gladiators? One might wonder is it because it doesn’t conform to the idea that women shouldn’t be viewed as a heroine that woman can’t be seen as masculine but as the weaker sex? Or was it simply because they were a more private viewing in Rome that only a few got to see because; it was such a beautiful lavished event and not many Roman aristocrats could afford a female gladiator. Or even that they don’t have much recorded about the