Archaic Misogyny

1
Archaic Misogyny
2
Womens life pattern

• Pais -child
• Parthenos -maiden
• Nymphe bride/ young wife
• Gyne - woman
• Graus old woman

3

• Praise and Blame
• Shame culture vs. guilt culture
• Power of speech, problem of silence

4
Pandora
Zeus ordered Athena to teach her the skill of
intricate weaving. And Aphrodite the golden he
ordered to shed on her charm and make her an
object of painful love and exhausting desire.
And he ordered Hermes to put in her mind a dogs
shamelessness and the deceit of a thief
5
Pandora
When he had had finished this beauty, this evil
to balance good, the gods and men were struck
with amazement, when they beheld this sheer
inescapable snare for men. From her descended
the race of women, the feminine sex from her
come the baneful race and types of women. Women,
a great plague, make their abodes with mortal men

6
Pandora
For the tribes of men had previously lived on
earth free and apart from evils, free from
burdensome labor and from painful diseases. But
then the woman, raising the jars great lid in
her hands and scattering its contents, devised
anguishing miseries for men.
7
Pandora
Moyers The Eden story has done women a great
disservice in casting Eve as responsible for the
fall. Why are women the ones held responsible
for the downfall? Campbell They represent life.
Man doesnt enter life except by woman, and so it
is woman who brings us into this world of pairs
of opposites and suffering.
8
Archaic Women

• What are the attributes of women (specific women,
  and in general) in Homer? (Nausicaa, Penelope,
  Helen )
• What are the attributes of women in Hesiod?
• Contrast the roles women play in these two
  contemporaries.

9
Semonides

• Where does Semonides poem get its humorous
  effect (assuming it has one )
• Are there humorous works today that represent
  women and married life as Semonides poem does?

10
finis