Feminism In Euripides Medea

“It is the best for all tame animals to be rules by human beings. For this is how they are kept alive. In the same way, the relationship between the male and the female is by nature such that the male is higher, the female is lower, that the male rules and the female is ruled.” (Aristotle 10). Feminism a term that was uncommon, as well as “forbidden” to say so, in the ancient patriarchal society of the Greeks. This society was based on the beliefs that men and women are different, and are even confirmed by Aristotle himself that women were considered weak, low, and passive.
It is very well known that the society of ancient Greece existed on the beliefs of being overwhelmingly patriarchal and misogynistic, even though there have been numerous attempts through ancient texts to salvage a voice to sympathize with the plight of the women. Euripides being one of the many voices and a “champion of women's equality” (Wright 7), shows his view of the female population through his play Medea. There is no other play, where a woman is portrayed to subvert the norms of feminism and overcome the bonds of masculinity. Euripides depiction of …show more content…
By doing this he carefully manipulates his audience into reconsidering the wrong this society has been doing to the female population. Through this play, he illustrates the audience to understand just how much injustice the women have endured and gone through in this patriarchal society. In Medea’s opening speech, Euripides shows his sympathy in regards to the plight of women in ancient Greece. According to many experts, this speech is “a fine feminist harangue” (Hadas) and that Medea in this speech is “rebutting a critique of marriage from the male viewpoint -- a critique whose essential spirit of dislike and contempt of women goes back to an ancient anti-feminist tradition…” (Reckford