The Portrayal of Women in Homers Odyssey Essay -- The Odyssey by Home

Does Homer exhibit gender bias in the Odyssey? Is the nature of woman as depicted in the Odyssey in any focus revealing? Upon examining the text of the Odyssey for differential preaching on men and women, it becomes needed to distinguish between three possible conclusions. One, differences in treatment beam the underlying Homeric thesis that women are different but cost in nature, Two, different treatment of men and women in the text shine a thesis that women are different and unequal in nature -- arguments about misogyny fall in here but a host of other interpretive possibilities are possible too. Three, the different treatment reflects simple ignorance. How much do we attribute what we discover to potent make-up -- or female authorship? In beginning, we might look to the gods for a clue. The adultery between Ares and Aphrodite for example is evenly represented -- both parties are to blame -- both are shamed -- both are banished. Although in that respect is some locker room talk between two of the male gods that they would willingly lie in chains several layers thick to be beside Aphrodite. Sexuality among mortals is another key to this poem and this question. Women and men are represented differentially in this regard -- The herdsman Eumaios -- Odysseus brother by acceptation recounts how he came to Ithaka a captive of a slave woman Phoinikia -- a woman who had been seduced by a roving seafarer w... .... 17-27. Griffin, Jasper. Homer on Life and Death, 1980, Clarendon Press. Richard Brilliant, Kirkes Men Swine and Sweethearts, pp. 165-73. Helene Foley, Penelope as Moral Agent, in Beth Cohen, ed., The female Side (Oxford 1995), pp. 93-115. Jennifer Neils, Les Femmes Fatales Skylla and the Sirens in Greek Art, pp. 175-84. Lillian Doherty, Siren Songs Gender, Audiences, and Narrators in the Odyssey (Ann Arbor 1995), esp. chapter 1. bloody shame Lefkowitz, Seduction and Rape in Greek Myth, 17-37. Marilyn Arthur Katz, Penelopes Renown Meaning and indetermination in the Odyssey (Princeton 1991). Nancy Felson-Rubin, Regarding Penelope From Courtship to Poetics (Princeton 1994).