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
injustice of how women are treated and viewed by men. Medea begins by speaking about how being a woman is inherently miserable.
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
women. Later in the passage Medea again challenges the stereotypes of genders. Medea makes the brave statement that, “I’d rather stand three times out in the front line than bear one child” (249-250). This is a direct challenge to a man’s masculinity, virtue, and strength, all of which were the ideals of society. By claiming that she would rather live the life of a warrior than bear one child Medea is implicitly stating that the life of a mother is a tougher and more painful life than that of a warrior. Her mocking of the profession is a strong attack on the hierarchy of the period. While Medea herself is not contradictory to the stereotypes of women in this age, in fact she is one of the most despicable women imaginable, Euripides uses her to promote concepts of gender inequality and to question the innate sexism of reality. Euripides’ Medea is a work of great significance to sexism and gender in the classical world. It challenges the concepts of women through the lens of a woman who is nothing near the ideal embodiment of feminism. The passage ranging from lines 230 to 250 is the best example of this contradiction; it presents Euripides’ views on women and the injustice of their position in the world. The presentation of this question through Medea in her erratic ranting to the Chorus creates a satire that is essential to the play as a literature. In Euripides’ Medea, Medea’s speech to the chorus is a use of literary irony to highlight the real irony of the existence of women as both essential and disregarded, as strong yet viewed as weak, and as intelligent yet often ignored.