Meda By Simonides: The Oppression Of Women

Aristotle was not alone with his assessment of females, for several of the greats, such as Homer, Socrates, Plato, along with numerous other ancient writers, believed that women were the weaker and inferior sex, and essentially lacking. Socrates went so far as contending that being born a woman was a divine punishment, since a woman is halfway between “a man and an animal.” Simonides, a writer, portrayed women as different types of animals that symbolize the forces of chaos. This Condescending view of women as only sex objects and baby-makers was commonplace in Greece. They were considered highly sexual beings that could not control their sexual impulses and therefore had to be restricted for their own sake. Superficially, various men had …show more content…
Although, some saw women’s positions as mothers in Greece as being important, passing on legitimacy for family inheritance; nevertheless outside their homes, women had limited access to social activities within their cities. The poet Hesiod loathed women as a ‘snare’ for men, calling women a ’poisonous race’ and ‘a great plague.’ Aristophanes had men chant in one of his plays, “Women are a shameless set, the vilest creatures going.” Euripides from his book ‘Meda’ writes; “If only children could be got some other way without the female sex! If women didn’t exist, human life would be rid of all its miseries.” These two authors easily depict fanatical evaluations of women in ancient times. Arrogantly, the majority of men felt that women were only needed to manufacture children, and used as by man’s …show more content…
However, a variety of vases have painted pictures of ancient goddesses, pointedly venerating the goddesses above ordinary women. A statue in the early 5th century B.C. shows the goddess Athena driving a four-horse chariot, illustrating how most men were a lot more taken with the goddesses of their time. A large amount of sculptures and their praises were for only the goddesses, and hardly ever showed monuments of an average woman. As far as the Romans go, nearly all early sources relating to Roman women and their place in society were written by men about women. Generally, Roman girls were usually married by the time they were twelve years old, and sometimes even younger.
The Greek physician and writer, known as Hippocrates, 460-370 B.C., laid the foundation for medical ideas about women for centuries onward, from the Romans to the Victorians Era. One of his writings called, On the Diseases of Virgins, was a work in the Hippocratic Corpus, that addresses the virgin’s disease, or ‘morbus virgineus;’ an alleged illness that afflicted ‘parthenoi.’ Hippocrates professed symptoms that included poor coloring, swelling, difficulty breathing, palpitations, headaches, and other problems; however, most drastically was cessation of menstruation that was also suggested by the