Classical sexism
What was it like being a lady in Ancient Greece - a walk through the gossip, the myths and the arts.
Ancient Greece (the one which in elementary school is summed up to philosophy and 3 types of columns) was extremely hostile to its women. Aristotle used to say, “as between the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject.”
‘Aristotle and Phyllis’, by Matthaus Zasinger, Germany, c1500.
It is possible that Aristotle was insecure and resentful like that because he had already been shamed by a woman named Phyllis. This sassy lady was in love with Alexander the Great, when she heard that Aristotle was advising her babe, to whom he served as a tutor, not to develop feelings for any woman, especially her. Phyllis, wicked and beautiful, decided to take revenge. She decided that she would seduce Aristotle and dominate him in public agora.
On the one hand, we can say Phyllis succeeded, for she persuaded the old philosopher to be ridden by her in front of the entire city. Thus providing evidence of the power of a determined woman. On the other hand, Alexander was more than convinced that his tutor’s advice was valid: it was better not to get involved with any woman, for that could be the end of the wisest of men.
This is an apocryphal story (of suspect origin) that was popular many centuries after Antiquity during the Nordic Renaissance. The fact is: in Ancient Greece no one spent too much time thinking about women. At all.
In art, for example, women were far less represented:
Before I move on, let’s pretend you interrupt me to ask, “Oh, but what about that Venus de Milo girl, the one without arms?”
‘Venus de Milo with Drawers’, by Salvador Dalí, 1936. Copyright Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala- Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2018.
The Venus de Milo you are referring to now lives in the Louvre. It was created between 130 and 100 BC, which means it is pretty recent considering Ancient history and art. We always remember it when thinking of Greek Art because there has been a huge controversy about its discovery, around 1820. Since then, the image of this Venus has been insanely repeated and parodied, as in the case of Salvador Dali’s sculpture and Bernardo Bertolucci’s film. Venus de Milo ended up engraved in the collective imaginary of the people as a prime example of Greek Art.
Eva Green in the movie The Dreamers, directed by Bertolucci in 2003.
From 800 BC to 300 BC, Greek female sculptures were nothing like Venus de Milo. They were called kore and were always dressed, while equivalent male sculptures, called kouros, were always nude. The women were represented dressed because the female body was not an icon for exaltation or pride as was the male. The female figures were drapery hangers.
It is strange for us to imagine a society where the female body does not receive excessive attention. We are very habituated to seeing it overly exposed and almost always according to predefined beauty standards. But the fact is that this was a society with a different kind of misogyny. Art, then, was made neither by nor for women. Instead of looking at the female body in the wrong ways as it happens nowadays, they did not look at all. Women were invisible.
Other depictions of the nude female body began to appear in Greek Art only after Praxisteles, the Athenian sculptor of Cnidus Aphrodite, in 300 BC, broke with tradition by representing his Venus without clothing. Take a look at her below. She is clearly embarrassed because of the swollen ankles her restorer gave her:
Cnidus Aphrodite. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek original from the 4th century. Original elements: torso and tights; restored elements: head, arms, legs and support (drapery an jug).
