Zoe’s Reviews > Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths > Status Update

“It’s a wretched fate to be a woman.”

“I am not suggesting for a moment that the ancient world isn’t packed with its own misogyny. It is. The literature and art which survive today were created in highly patriarchal societies which gave enormous power to a small group of wealthy men. But all too often it is the misogyny of more recent times that we are reading.”

“The [1945 poem about Penthesilea] is a succinct illustration of the way female characters in Greek myth have been marginalized by writers in the relatively modern world. Ancient writers and artists had no problem with a warrior queen that could fight and kill men, whose prowess on the battlefield was equal to any man’s and superior to most.”