Ancient Greek society was highly stratified in terms of gender, class, and ethnicity. These stratifications had tremendous implications for how power was distributed and expressed in Greek society. One of the most notable power differentials, and likely the most severe and immutable, was the difference in status between males and females. Females were categorically prohibited from altering their own status or role, ensuring the perpetuation of patriarchy. Women meditated the patriarchal system by developing spheres of power and command in two realms in particular: the domestic and the religious.
Elite women had access to systems of power that lower class women did not. So bereft of power were the women of the lower classes that their lives were not deemed worthy enough of observation or analysis by Greek historians, scholars, writers, or philosophers. Elite women, on the other hand, enjoyed some treatment by each of these historiographies. Particularly in Sparta, elite women could possess enough status to influence public discourse, as Sophocles demonstrates in his
Family reputation did have a strong bearing on the relative status of a woman, but generally a Spartan female elite enjoyed tacit, but not explicit property rights: even though she could not enjoy the full privileges of title and deed such as political empowerment, she had some localized control over her property and how it was managed (Pomeroy, 2002).
Beliefs about the lowly status of women in Greek society can be traced to the high value given to physical strength and power and the perception of female weakness. The highest pinnacle of a woman's strength was deemed to be her ability to produce a healthy male offspring and survive the ordeal, perhaps to do it again (Xenophon, 4th cent BCE). Male strength on the battlefield was weighted highly, particularly in ancient Sparta. Excluding women from participation in the military precluded half of all Greeks, Spartan or not, from demonstrating their prowess. Yet women were encouraged to develop their athletic strength so that her body would be suitable for childbirth: "the female sex ought to take bodily exercise no less than the male," (Xenophon). Whereas men had an ideal body, the body of the female was inferior and subordinate to men. The female body in Greek myth was linked closely with death because the female body symbolizes the cycle of birth and death (Clark, 2009). Aristotle went so far as to claim that women were…
Communication Studies Key Concepts Communication Studies examine the way human beings communicate with one another and how that communication reflects meaning. Thus, there are a number of key concepts which relate to the process of communication itself and how those concepts reflect a larger cultural structure or phenomenon. First, symbols are those elements which we use to describe particular objects and/or phenomenon. Meaning is the associated definition of the symbols we work
In the first instance, the research undertaken on this topic has attempted to be as inclusive as possible. To this end databases such as Ebscohost and Quesia were consulted for up-to-date sources and data. However the research was also limited to the ideas and objectives suggested in chapter one. The following review is indicative of the some of the most important studies within the parameter of the central questions
She argues that the evasiveness and incongruites in the narrative exist since Spenser is facing issues that are not easily answered. From the start, Britomart represents an authority figure, a power not found in any other knight in the Faerie Queene. Spenser says that Britomart literally cannot be beaten, since she carries a powerful magic spear, or phallic symbol (depending on the interpretation) that refers back to the theme of
Women and Gender Studies Of all the technologies and cultural phenomena human beings have created, language, and particularly writing, is arguably the most powerful, because it is the means by which all human experience is expressed and ordered. As such, controlling who is allowed to write, and in a modern context, be published, is one of the most effective means of controlling society. This fact was painfully clear to women writers
As in most other places around the world, the demands of family - caring for children, keeping house, obtaining and preparing food for meals - fall predominantly on women. In the case of Cuba this situation is made worse by the distortions of the communistic economy: People's motivation to work waned as there was little to work for. Money came to have little meaning in the legal economy - but
Stereotyped depictions of Muslim culture in the media make it seem that all Muslim women live in a Harem, following orders from their tyrannical husbands. On the contrary, many Muslim cultures have afforded women equal rights in the law and in the society. The Quran does not advocate the subjugation of women by men; in fact the Quran is arguably more egalitarian than the Old Testament upon which both
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