Birth of the Gods: The Existence of Women in Ancient Greek Mythology

The history of humanity consists of people’s search for the superior to themselves. They feel the need to adhere and shape their sacred, separating the spiritual from the material. Civilization develops its creators. One of the essential instance is created by Ancient Greek, especially the position of women in Ancient Greek mythology.

Ancient Greek’s World

Mortal vs. Immortal

According to Ancient Greek mythology, the existing life is divided into two groups as mortal and immortal. The difference between gods and goddesses who are immortal and men and women who are mortal seems like an abyss. The reason why one is superior to the other is because of the supernatural powers possessed by the superior. There is a woman in the center of this superiority, in all these miracles, spells, and extremes: The Goddess.

The Goddess vs. The God

The Goddess, like all other divine beings, is both unique and extraordinary. Physical and character traits are often similar and exaggerated like beautiful, ugly, docile, combative. The responsibilities of goddesses are oriented towards giving birth to a child and raising the child. Here, all the attributes bestowed on the goddess make her similar to her earthling fellow which we can call her as an “adult female human.”

However, there are fundamental distinctions that arise in their purpose of existence between them: The birth of goddesses and their communication with other gods, children they gave birth to, and the descendants from those children are handled with a positive approach. But the creation of the one spesific gender of human is a punishment for human beings. This punishment is given to Prometheus who tried to deceive Zeus; it brings sorrow, evil, poverty to the earth. The punishment is named as the woman, and also the beginning of evil.

The Mother of Evil: Pandora

Zeus adorns this troublemaker he created for mortal people with the most perfect adjectives. She is beautified with the help of Athena and she may attract attention. This is done by Zeus to deceive the human being. Her beauty and flawlessness make it sure to become an undeniable focus. It happens as he wishes, and Prometheus suffers his punishment by experiencing the pain envisioned by Zeus when the first woman, named Pandora, descended to the earth and open a box that is filled with evil.

When we use the phrase “mother of all evil”, we should know that we are affected by Ancient Greek mythology. Especially, the prejudice of men to women in Ancient Greek mythology. Evil has a “mother” because it is a woman who gives birth to evil. Giving birth is a characteristic that only the female, whether mortal or immortal, has.

Another feature is its beauty. Women being more aesthetic than men, deceiving with external beauty, masking themself with their external features, and all the similar accusations are just a few instances of the negative approach to women’s existence.

Women in Ancient Greek Mythology

Besides, being a woman brings about being in subjection to men, even if the title of a goddess is taken. Goddesses can be kidnapped from their palaces by the men who liked them. Children can be killed by the anger of their husbands. Even if a holy person is a woman, the goddess is under the direction of the god.

The basic phenomenon that can be recognized by the depiction of Pandora and the goddess is the definition of a woman from a male perspective which is quite biased and patriarchal. The man tries to make sense of her fertility and shapes from his beliefs by making this an extraordinary event. It is both astonishing and frightening to a man than a woman derives new entities from her existence.

When Zeus creates Pandora with a cunning vengeance plot, she becomes blamed for harboring evil. The masculine cunning of the creator is ignored, and the disasters he brought to the earth are attributed to the woman through her gender. The concept of woman is a disastrous creature that is tried to be explained by glorifying and criticizing at the same time. She both ensures the continuity of existence and destroys the existing. In ancient Greek mythology, it seems possible to make similar inferences in many religious beliefs that embraced patriarchy.

REFERENCES

Cartwright, M. (2015, July 27) Pandora. https://www.ancient.eu/Pandora/

Debruyne, L. (2020, June 01) The victims of Greek Mythology’s abductors. https://medium.com/tragic-greeks/the-victims-of-greek-mythologys-abductors-5a2d5a4333ba

Gill, N.S. (2019, June 27) Understanding the significance of Pandora’s box. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-was-pandoras-box-118577