Gender Roles in Classical Cultures Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Gender Roles in Classical Cultures - Term Paper Example Theogony by Hesiod (circa 700 B.C.E. or before current era) is a very long poem of about a thousand lines that details the genealogy of Greek gods. It was written in the style of a Homeric epic and goes all the way back to the mists of time, in fact, to the very beginning of the world similar to the Genesis in the Christian bible. It is a very massive collection of local Greek cultural traditions and stories that details how the gods came to be. In the story or poem there is the first hint of an attempt to establish a logical reality based on the observations seen in the universe or cosmos. This is a long narrative about ancient Greek mythology in which there is already discernible the underlying theme of gender roles even among gods. In Theogony, the male gods were often in conflict with their female god counterparts. As mentioned earlier elsewhere, this narrative was written by a male Greek bard and as such it had a decidedly male viewpoint. Female gods were portrayed as necessary to the world in the extent these females were to provide companionship to male gods and of course, for purposes of reproduction to bring forth offspring. Other than these requirements, there is a clear line of misogyny thinking throughout the whole poem. Women and girls were shown to be causing all the troubles of the male gods by their machinations, intrigues, and manipulations. There is a feeling that the world is a much better place if only these female gods had behaved. An overall impression a reader gets is that women are better relegated.