Euripides Medea-Gender In Classical Literature

Gender in Medea The treatment and portrayal of women in classical literature ranges from horrifying to degrading. Often, females are either presented as property, weak, and incapable or as manipulative and vindictive creatures that bring about the destruction of “valiant” and “worthy” men. Sexism is a cohesive theme throughout classical literature and myth. Euripides’ Medea does not directly portray women differently than the other works of his age, but there is an acknowledgement of the drastic gap in treatment between men and women through dialogue. Medea herself is an example of the powerful and manipulative version of classical women, but in her speech to the Chorus in lines 230 to 250 in Euripides’ Medea she emphasizes the miserable fate of weak women in her society, and the
The expectations on women are not only vile but inescapable. When speaking of marriage, she says: “we have to accept him as possessor of our body” (232-33), highlighting the mistreatment that women suffer through men. Ironically, Medea here notes that women become the property of their husbands through marriage, a fact would seem quite demeaning and unhappy, yet she is willing to murder when her husband finds a new bride. Medea’s convoluted and even contradictory thinking is the perfect example of the exact madness and nonsense that men claim make women the weaker sex. Medea’s bitter resentment for having been such a typical and naive woman drives her hatred for her husband and ultimately leads her to kill her husband's new bride and their children. The enactment of revenge is the sign of changing times in Greece, a certain revolution of gender where women were no longer going to “accept” men as their possessors. They were now prepared to defend themselves at any costs, even rejecting their mothering role and nurturing identity to become a murderer, a drastic shaking in the accepted opinion regarding