#Said hero still being a man in every vile sense of the greek standard

[mmmelahii]

I fuckckign hate when rewrites of Greek myth take the authors and poets of the time at their word when they describe women. Ancient Greek society was built on misogyny to the point where I actively contest that a wholly reciprocal and consentual heterosexual relationship could even occur in context of Greek mythos; women were actively not humanised enough to own themselves.

Strong-willed, intelligent, powerful women were villainised or revered then; moreso as women were depicted as actual punishments of Zeus, cunning, beautiful and conniving. It's frustrating then, to see this reading of the characters through the lens of men whom feared and dismissed women then propagated in modern rewrites which don't examine this narrative bias.

Women daring to have pride in their work, or their families or homes were actively punished for their 'hubris' by the gods (in this examination at least, I'm going to say that Athene's punishment of Arachne, or Leto's of Niobe, despite them being women, still emphasised their superiority over mortal women, with the autonomy offered to them by godhood. Autonomy being the thing women didn't have in the period. Granted, goddesses were still victims of their sex in the context of their society) or men in their lives. Despite this, men had much more leeway in their talk, of course, challenging the gods themselves nary ended well, but there was kleos in the game, and that kleos was at least understood.

I do however wish I knew more about the topic!!! I'm no classicist nor is this really a subject I'm that well versed in, so if you have anymore input I'd love to discuss