Women In Ancient Greek Culture

The Minoan culture of Greece worshipped female goddesses in their peaceful, matriarchal society. When the patriarchal Mycenaean Greeks came to power, they brought their male-focused myths with them, telling of powerful men and the weak women inferior to them. The myths present in Greek culture often portray women as inferior to men in their qualities of stupidity, and ability to bring pain and suffering to mankind. The anthology Mythology and You by Donna Rosenberg and Sorelle Baker contains the myths “Pandora”, “Demeter and Persephone”, “Jason”, and “Metis and Athena”, which each characterize women in a negative light. American society and media often paint female characters as basic, two dimensional people while implying male superiority,

The myth “Demeter and Persephone” describes Persephone, the young goddess of spring, falling into a trap set by the lovestruck god of the underworld, Hades. Zeus informs Hades that if he can lure Persephone into a trap and kidnap her, then they can marry. Hades sets a field of beautiful flowers, drawing over the young goddess. When Persephone goes to gather the flowers, the earth opens up and Hades captures her (Rosenberg 73). Persephone’s naive and stupid nature led to Hades tricking her easily. This implies that men could take advantage of women, enforcing their overall superiority. A Mycenaean man could read the myth of Persephone and follow Hades’s example, set by taking advantage of Persephone. The patriarchal practices used by the gods led to a poor treatment of women within Mycenaean Greek society. The legend “Metis and Athena” portrays extremely gullible women as well. As a goddess of wisdom, Metis possessed much intelligence, but her lack of common sense landed her in a ploy by Zeus to ensure that his child would not overthrow him. Zeus took advantage of her ability to shapeshift and inquired, “Would she display her marvelous talent of transforming herself? She would? How wonderful! Could she change herself into a fire? Running water? A lion? A boar? A snake?” (Rosenberg 44). Metis transformed herself into a tiny object at Zeus’s request when he swallowed her whole. Minoans regarded Metis as the wisest goddess, so Zeus’s easy trickery proves to the Mycenaeans that a man could fool a woman with ease, even the most astute, and that a woman would just fall for the trick due to her stupidity. This idea that man could exploit a woman with such little effort maintained the standard that men held dominance over women in Greece. The myth “Pandora” represented its titular character as an overly trusting, unsuspecting woman as well. In order to exact