According to Greek mythology, a man and a woman, are created as two equal principles completing a single whole. In practice, a woman turned out to be completely subordinate to a man. The male competitive spirit pushed women out of public life, and in the private sphere, the freedom of women was subjected to significant restrictions. Without electoral and economic rights, a woman acted only as a wife. A similar attitude towards the female sex was also expressed at the level of the mythological basis.
At first glance, there is an impressive gallery of powerful women in Greek myth and literature: Medea, Clytemnestra, Antigone, and many others. However, they were by no means role models. For the most part, they are depicted not as exercising power but as abusing it. For example, the jealous Hera to Aphrodite, using their charms to make men lose their minds. Ancient Greek male authors often portrayed women as troublemakers. Myth and literature abound with female characters who struggle to thwart the plans of male heroes, from the arch witch Medea to the deadly. Women were also often presented as driven only by the wild passion and ecstatic emotions.
The best myth which typifies the general attitude toward female subjects is the story of Pandora’s box. The very purpose of Pandora’s existence is to predict global problems for humanity. The myth says that an angry Zeus ordered Hephaestus, the god of fire and the patron of blacksmiths, to mold a maiden from clay, similar to goddesses in beauty (Quartermain). When work on the body was completed, each of the Olympians presented Pandora with a gift. Later, despite the given peace in her life, Pandora lifted the lid of the box and unleashed an unimaginable amount of misfortune and misfortune sent by the gods on the world. Therefore, the women in Greek mythology mostly give rise to chaos, the fall of the state, death, and devastation.
Work Cited
Quartetmain, Colin. “Pandora’s Box and Hope.” Owlcation, 2022. Web.