As the Feminist Theory relates to present, the movement of the 60s and 70s aimed to confront and dismiss the political and social injustice and biases of women. In an article Subject to Change: Theories and Paradigms of U.S. Feminist Theory, Thurner describes the evolution of feminist history within the culture as “an attempt to correct or supplement an incomplete record of the past but a way of critically understanding how history operates as a site of the production of gender knowledge.” (128) Thurner explained how historians attempted to re-write history, concentrating their writings on the truth about women and the injustices that they faced, and break the cycle of discrimination by making visible the contribution and importance of women in history. Feminism or gender theory according to Van Bussel “form[ed] the basis of the argument that women…are underrepresented and misunderstood…, and this lack of meaningful representation has potentially dire consequences in the push for social, political and economic development in these areas” (58). The following passages show how the perspectives of the Feminist theory will be used to analyze and discuss how women were oppressed in the ancient Greek …show more content…
Women in Greek culture in the text had arranged marriages and were trained to do things according to their cultural beliefs or what they were accustomed to do (i.e., behavior, rearing children, preparing meals, and maintaining the household. Those were skills that men found useful for a woman to make a good wife. A man was the head of the household and the woman’s responsibilities were mainly domestic. Women were not allowed to own property or real estate, nor were they able to be in control of the household’s finances. Women were beaten when they were disobedient. Women were seen as inferior to men, therefore a man’s opinion mattered most and men were credited for all of their ideas for governing a successful household. Women during those times were seen as evil and were hated by men. Based on Zeus’s ideals of women in the text, women were seen as a man’s punishment. Women were only deemed important in Ancient Greek culture by her ability to reproduce male children. The average woman had 4-5 live births and on average 7-8 sons. Women were frowned upon if they committed adultery but men could commit adultery with their slaves of both sexes. Women were seen as a man’s property. An adulterous woman was treated as an outcast and forced to divorce. She was not allowed to re-marry. Women were forbidden to reveal any parts of their bodies in public but any references to sex for a man was