The Role of Women’s Fear in the Roots of Misogyny and Female Legal Marginalization within the Greek Context

The paper aims to investigate the roots of the cultural models underlying the contemporary gender gap, through an analysis of ancient Greek culture. Beginning with female representations in the Homeric poems, the study will focus primarily on the portrayal of women in Greek theater, in whose works women are often depicted as the primary cause of the tragic outcome. From this perspective, women appear often emerge as tragic anti-heroines rather than tragic heroines, in sharp contrast to the male heroic figure. Given the role of ancient theatre in disseminating the core values of the polis, this paper seeks to identify – albeit briefly – the role played by literary gynophobia. In particular, it examines whether fear of women functioned as a pretext for the adoption of laws that institutionalized female marginalization, such as those regulating divorce and sexual violence.