Comparison Of Odysseus And Speculum Of The Other Women

Modern feminist thinkers are critical of these depictions of women. They argue for equality and for societies to stop oppressing them. One famous feminist author is Luce Irigary. She’s a renowned feminist thinker who works in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and linguistics. In her famous book Speculum of the Other Woman, she explains how throughout history females have been delegated to the status as inferior to males, and argues against this ideal. She believes that the idea that’s prominent in Western culture of the male being representative of culture and everything that is going on in society, while females are just seen as the other part or with “matter and nature,” is significantly flawed (Britannica). Feminists like her believe that woman should be
more valued for their contributions and seen in better light than history and literature gives them credit for. If Irigary were to critique the plays, she would think very negatively on all of them. Penelope in the Odyssey is portrayed as a stereotypical female by Western ideals. She stays in the home and doesn’t interact much in worldly affairs such as in religion, political theory, philosophy, etc.
and lets the male, her husband Odysseus, represent the culture of their society. This is a concept that Irigary is heavily against and would criticize these depictions of women as being sexist and degrading. Irigary would rather have it such that the female is a more active member of society and seen as an equal to males in terms of religion and political thought instead of being locked up in the palace waiting for Odysseus. In the other two plays, Irigary would criticize them for portraying women as psychopaths and crazy individuals who only care about revenge. The way Clytemnestra is depicted would be horrific to Irigary, as it makes it seem as if women are easily overwhelmed by their emotion and let the thought of vengeance get in their way of reason. Also, in the story of Medea, Irigary would be disappointed to find out that she is portrayed as someone who is almost fully dependent on her husband and seeks revenge upon finding that he has left her. As a strong feminist activist, Irigary would strike these descriptions as non-representative of women and terrible examples of the reality of
women. She’d critique it by stating that in these literature texts, women are being degraded as animalistic as they are seen as psychotic murderers, instead of how they should be viewed and written as: logical people who are fully capable and equal to men in being helpful to society. Overall, feminist thinkers like Irigary would be very critical and disappointed to read about these descriptions of women, as they see them as completely incorrect depictions. My personal opinion on the representation of women in these texts is mixed. I feel like the depictions of women in the Odyssey are a good portrayal of women, as it shows them to be loyal, faithful, clever, and perseverant humans, which are all good traits. However, I do feel like it is a bit degrading, as Irigary would point out, since they aren’t being active in society and are merely seen as just queens and wives. In the other two texts, Medea and Agamemnon, I really did not like the portrayal of women. They were described extremely negatively throughout the texts and acted ridiculously and irrationally because of their emotion, which is definitely not an accurate depiction of them. I also didn’t like how they were portrayed as being revengeful beings and people who only cared about getting revenge on the people that had hurt them, because this isn’t accurate as they’re typically more in control of their actions and more forgiving and rational. Overall, I think that the texts really undervalued and underrepresented the qualities of women, especially their good qualities, and wasn’t a big fan of how they were depicted in the plays.