O Athena, Where Art Thou in the Gender Narrative of The Odyssey?
When I was a kid, I thought of Athena as a distant role-model. She was so smart, so full of vigor and schemes, I was inspired to be wise like her. However, reading The Odyssey made me challenge how much I might have looked up to her. While I appreciate the presence of a strong, intelligent woman in the story of mostly justified subservient or unjustified promiscuous women, I think Athena's presence in Homer's The Odyssey does more to uphold gender roles and conceptions than it does to break them down.
When I think about it, Athena hardly challenges gender norms because she is a goddess and not technically a woman. Specifically, I feel a little squeamish about the fact that she always takes the corporeal forms of men. Very rarely does she come down to earth as a woman. While she is credited with intelligence and capability, and is the goddess of wisdom, these traits are never associated with her womanhood - the fact that her analogous human form is almost always a man, especially when giving advice or guiding other people, seems to associate the traits of intelligence and leadership with manhood AND godliness (implying an association between godliness and manhood).
When Athena's storyline is considered in the rest of the poem, she does not redeem or add to any of the already negative gendered associations that are put on women, even goddess women. Athena does very little to complicate or enhance our idea of what a woman should be - more so, she exists to tell us what a man should be. She almost explicitly teaches Telemachus how to be a man, and helps Odysseus regain his estate like a man is supposed to do. She is the one most critical of the suitors who are arguably not really fulfilling their role as honorable men in these societies - men are supposed to host, to lead, to manage their own property, and the suitors are all kind of piggy packing on Odysseus's claim to manhood, in a way. Moreover, she hardly interacts with the other women of the story - she only does so with Penelope if it is to help her go to sleep, look pretty, or give her ideas. There is no sense that Athena is mentoring her or other women in the same way that she mentors Telemachus and Odysseus - AKA, the women are not as valuable to Athena, even though she could be considered one of them depending on how you understand godliness.
I think the ways that Athena strays from the ideas of manhood in ancient Greece are telling as well. I find it kind of icky that Athena gets the best rep of all the women or goddesses in this story because she has most of the traits of manhood in ancient Greece, but is missing the elements of manhood that might make a woman "bad." For example, we never hear Athena make a lustful comment ever or hear about her having sex with anyone, that context is missing - with Odysseus, his infidelity does not make him a bad husband, but Penelope is tested for her fidelity immediately. With Calypso, her desire for sex is seen as bad (I mean, we can't really overlook that Calypso has Odysseus trapped as a slave, but that doesn't seem to be all of the problem with it for most of the gods, especially seeing as how Calypso brings up the unfair sexual standard). Athena is quite simply left out from this consideration - probably because it might've been hard for Homer to reconcile her manly traits as a good thing with the fact that she is female. She maintains other manly traits quite rigidly, so I find it interesting that this one is not included. Infidelity as a woman, even a goddess, as an acceptable or normalized thing, might have been crossing a line for ancient Greeks.
Sorry for the slight incoherence - I'm not quite sure exactly what I want to say about it yet. I think for the most part, The Odyssey has a clear gender message. Athena makes the lines a little blurrier, but I think that ultimately, she reinforces that manhood is more valuable than womanhood. What do you think? Does Athena's presence in the story complicate its gender mosaic, or reinforce it? Can she be considered a woman in the rhetoric of the poem? Where do you see Athena/gender dynamics in O Brother Where Art Thou?
When I think about it, Athena hardly challenges gender norms because she is a goddess and not technically a woman. Specifically, I feel a little squeamish about the fact that she always takes the corporeal forms of men. Very rarely does she come down to earth as a woman. While she is credited with intelligence and capability, and is the goddess of wisdom, these traits are never associated with her womanhood - the fact that her analogous human form is almost always a man, especially when giving advice or guiding other people, seems to associate the traits of intelligence and leadership with manhood AND godliness (implying an association between godliness and manhood).
When Athena's storyline is considered in the rest of the poem, she does not redeem or add to any of the already negative gendered associations that are put on women, even goddess women. Athena does very little to complicate or enhance our idea of what a woman should be - more so, she exists to tell us what a man should be. She almost explicitly teaches Telemachus how to be a man, and helps Odysseus regain his estate like a man is supposed to do. She is the one most critical of the suitors who are arguably not really fulfilling their role as honorable men in these societies - men are supposed to host, to lead, to manage their own property, and the suitors are all kind of piggy packing on Odysseus's claim to manhood, in a way. Moreover, she hardly interacts with the other women of the story - she only does so with Penelope if it is to help her go to sleep, look pretty, or give her ideas. There is no sense that Athena is mentoring her or other women in the same way that she mentors Telemachus and Odysseus - AKA, the women are not as valuable to Athena, even though she could be considered one of them depending on how you understand godliness.
I think the ways that Athena strays from the ideas of manhood in ancient Greece are telling as well. I find it kind of icky that Athena gets the best rep of all the women or goddesses in this story because she has most of the traits of manhood in ancient Greece, but is missing the elements of manhood that might make a woman "bad." For example, we never hear Athena make a lustful comment ever or hear about her having sex with anyone, that context is missing - with Odysseus, his infidelity does not make him a bad husband, but Penelope is tested for her fidelity immediately. With Calypso, her desire for sex is seen as bad (I mean, we can't really overlook that Calypso has Odysseus trapped as a slave, but that doesn't seem to be all of the problem with it for most of the gods, especially seeing as how Calypso brings up the unfair sexual standard). Athena is quite simply left out from this consideration - probably because it might've been hard for Homer to reconcile her manly traits as a good thing with the fact that she is female. She maintains other manly traits quite rigidly, so I find it interesting that this one is not included. Infidelity as a woman, even a goddess, as an acceptable or normalized thing, might have been crossing a line for ancient Greeks.
Sorry for the slight incoherence - I'm not quite sure exactly what I want to say about it yet. I think for the most part, The Odyssey has a clear gender message. Athena makes the lines a little blurrier, but I think that ultimately, she reinforces that manhood is more valuable than womanhood. What do you think? Does Athena's presence in the story complicate its gender mosaic, or reinforce it? Can she be considered a woman in the rhetoric of the poem? Where do you see Athena/gender dynamics in O Brother Where Art Thou?
You've covered quite well the weird, paradoxical sexism in Athena's powerful portrayal. I'd also like to mention the way that she gives ideas to men versus women, or at least how Homer writes about it. When a man receives a plan from Athena, he usually is portrayed as a conscious agent. Athena gives him an idea, and he consciously takes advice and acts it out. Think about how Odysseus reached the palace of the Phaeacians. Athena gave him advice, appearing as a little girl, and he was the one who remembered the advice and followed it, adding his own little embellishments, and overall staying in control of the situation.
ReplyDeleteBut when Athena gives a woman advice, two things change. First off, since we are rarely, if ever, in the viewpoint of a woman, the scenes are shorter and there's less emphasis on them. But second, the woman loses her agency in the situation. It's like she's become a mouthpiece for the god. She doesn't, as a rule, get the control or the credit for her actions when she's influenced by a god. Think about all the times Athena causes women to fall asleep or turn away to maintain Odysseus' disguise. And remember how Odysseus is always "tactfully responding," but when Penelope tells him about the weaving trick, she notes that a god must have planted the idea in her head.
I find tons of similarities between this sexual dichotomy and the popularity of spiritual mediums in the 1800s. The mediums were people, often women, who claimed to be in touch with God, the dead, or some other aspect of the spiritual realm. Often, they would transmit their own ideas by invoking spirits because they themselves, as women, weren't socially allowed to speak up. By using the veil of the spirit world, spiritual mediums got an accepted voice. This voice parallels, to me, Athena's use of Penelope as a type of spirit medium. Maybe Penelope and Odysseus are equally smart, but the author clearly lays more of the credit for Penelope's actions at Athena's feet.
For more info on feminism and spiritual mediums in the 1800s, see this fun article! https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2885&context=etd&preview_mode=1
Well, you've just summarized the struggle I had with Athena throughout the entirety of The Odyssey. The only defense I can think of for her is that gods don't really have a gender. But you make an excellent point with Athena and aspects of manhood that defeats that argument. Athena embodies aspects of womanhood, but she doesn't embody aspects of manhood at all. So she's really not genderless at all. And the focus she has on the men is much more than her focus on any of the women in the story (all what, one of them? The lack of women in The Odyssey is a whole other mess for some other time, though). Penelope is generally left alone for the whole epic poem, except for the occasional check-in to make sure she's still crying. She could totally do something to help the plot along, but nope. Homer doesn't care about her in the story, so Athena doesn't either. Argh.
ReplyDelete