Feminism In Homer's Odyssey

Feminism. A goal that people have tried to achieve for hundreds of years. No matter how close we are, we are never fully there. The expectations and pressure put on women has been the same for hundreds of years, and media has not played a helping role in the situation. The expectations and pressures are drastically similar to how they were in Homer’s era. Although, some things have stayed the same, the way we view women, and their role in society has changed and developed for the better. For hundreds of years, women have always been considered unfaithful or even called derogatory terms if they were not “faithful”, towards their man. There are always images floating around the internet, explaining how women are no longer faithful, and how they always have to be waiting hand and foot for their man. This is no different than how it was in Homer’s era. Odysseus was lost at sea for more than 20 years. Not only that, but for about one of those years, he lived with a Goddess and had sex with her countless amount of times, and he expected to see his wife …show more content…
“She’s mine”, “that’s my baby”. Yes, it can seem very romantic and sweet, but women are not theirs to own. Are they considered property to them? This has been all the talk in social media, girls saying things like “I just want someone to call me theirs”. This is not helping with their self-esteem, this is not helping them believe that they do not need men for everything. They can accomplish anything they want without a man by their side. They are their own person and belong to no one. In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus does not necessarily look at his wife as an equal, he looks at her as something he can toy around with, basically a toy he owns. When Odysseus was hiding his identity he was toying around with his wife’s brain by not telling her who he truly was, and when he does tell her, he basically chokes her for not showing happiness that he is finally