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Women in the Ancient Athenian Context
From an Ecofeminist Perspective
Abstract
I discern in Greek myths related to goddess
Athena, traces of the idea of domination of mind over senses and that men were seen
as superior to women because of their naturally ruling mind. The Athenian, Platonic, androcentric, hierarchical worldview saw women
as physically inferior to men. Behind courageous, wise Athena, lie Plato’s
dualistic philosophy of reason, and the ideology of control. We must make a
distinction between a dualistic philosophy and a holistic approach to reality.
Ancient goddess Hestia’s inextinguishable flame as
energy of all life extended to the entire world can symbolize the
interrelatedness of all life.
Keywords
Soul, body, reason, dualisms,
interrelatedness, myth; feminist hermeneutics.
Bio
Ioanna
Sahinidou:
·
Holds university degrees in Natural Sciences and Regional
Development and took a doctoral degree in philosophy (theology) Wales University
Trinity Saint David.
·
International guest: Women’s
Gathering of the PC (USA), summer 1997.
·
Founding member of the ‘Greek group of EFECW’.
·
Member of the Greek group of ESWTR.
·
Speaker: International
Conference on Deaconesses, Ordination of Women and Orthodox Theology January,
2015-Thessaloniki, Greece.
·
Member of the group ECOTHEE-Orthodox
Academy of Crete
·
.Coordinator
of the Synodic Committee “Sanctity
of Life-Ecology” of the Greek Evangelical Church.
Introduction
Domination is rooted in a common ideology
based on the control of reason over nature, and on the separation of our beings
into soul and body. The theoretical work brings to consciousness the past as
basic to knowing the present.[1]
Dualisms correspond to gender, class, race, and nature. They result in
unhealthy relationships within our own selves, with other human beings, with
the rest of creation, and with God. I address the eco-social problem, as a
split within our own being as mind/soul, and the way out of ‘split selves’
towards ‘whole, socio-ecological selves.’[2]
Ecofeminist Reflections on Dualisms
Plato defines the primal dualism of reality:
its division into the invisible eternal, primal, original realm of thought and
the visible and temporal realm of corporeality. According to Ruether[3]
the messages of the Platonic creation story[4]
are: reality is divided between mind and body. The soul is primal, eternal, and
good, while the body is a source of evil. The natural sensations must be
mastered by the immortal, godlike mind. The world was created alive with soul
and mind. Humans share in the divine nature by having mind and the soul’s home
is the eternal star-world.[5]
In contrast, the body is the source of mortality. The hierarchy of mind over
body is reflected in the hierarchy of male over female, of human over animals,
and in the class hierarchy of rulers over workers. Ιn Plato’s Republic, the ordered society corresponds to
the hierarchy of the well ordered self, with mind in control and the will under
the lead of reason. Similarly hierarchy occurs with the social castes of first
the philosophers-rulers, then the guardian-warriors, and at the bottom: manual
workers or slaves.[6]
Women are inferior members of all castes. Physically a woman could do any job,
but she is in all-weaker than men.[7]
For Plato, male domination, class hierarchy, and inferiorization of nature were
parts of the social order, showing the primal division of reality into soul
over body. Ruling-class males, at the top of the hierarchy mirrored the world
of the eternal ideas with gods sharing in the animating principle of the cosmic
soul. The body is the ‘prison’ of the soul; earth is the collective prison of
incarnated souls that must move out of this fallen state to their true home in
the stars. Earth and body are in the quest of the male mind to secure immortal
life.[8]
In my view, feminists need to retrieve the
idea of soul in Homer where there is no master-concept of soul, and dissociate
the anthropological LXX use of ‘soul’ from the Platonic dualism. Instead they
should consider the biblical tradition where humans are seen as related to
their own selves, an idea found in the OT usage of nepes. Feminists must
retrieve the NT meaning of the soul as a person’s relationship to God and the
other. They can study the connection between ψυχὴν ζῶσαν-living being and εἰκόνα-image of God leading to a
relational creation connected to the Creator who breathes into the human nostrils the breath of
life.
Gender as a Hermeneutical Tool against Dualisms
The interrelatedness and interdependence of all cosmic and earthly beings with everything
else that exists, uncovers the dualism: soul/body,
creating a theological anthropology that becomes the reality of all. A critical
feminist hermeneutics of liberation develops a dialectical mode of exegesis
that asserts that all forms of dominion are sinful. This hermeneutics, gives
justice to women’s experiences of life, as source of empowerment in our
struggle for liberation.[9]
Schüssler Fiorenza discusses the challenge of feminist exegesis that claims the
right of women to interpret experience from their own perspective. She
emphasizes the feminist struggle for the discipleship of equals in the Bible.[10]
We become aware of our self and its
enlargement through connectivity, just as the cosmos is interconnected at the
inner being level of its members. We experience the tendency ‘to extend one’s
own self’.[11] ‘I’
and any cosmic being, depend on the entire cosmos in space/time. The God of the
Bible, as was thought to exist outside the physical dimension of bodies, was an
idea that fused with Greek philosophical dualism of spirit/matter became the
identity myth of the Western ruling-male class. Feminist theology, breaks
open the conceptual cage of dualisms, and provides critical grounding for
ecofeminist theology to face the dualism between human and non-human creation.[12]
Feminist theology’s analysis shows that many forms see the other as both
inferior and separate. This substructure offers an analytical tool.[13]
The rise of a global economy that exploits
human and natural resources[14]
is linked with the modern, scientific, mechanistic worldview, which is based on
the ideology of control. Modern patriarchy could be linked with the slave
trade, the colonial economies, the persecution of women-witches, the emergence
of science/ technology, and its mastery over nature.[15]
In analyzing domination and its various forms, all share certain features ·some of them are: 1. Radical exclusion,
making the ‘other’ known as both inferior and separate. 2. Differences and diversity within the
otherness is disregarded, domination appears as natural. 3.
Identification of the other in relation to the man as central. 5. Social worth
is derived instrumentally according to the desires of the ruler. This
substructure provides an analytical tool. All forms of dominion are
sinful. Some guidelines to considering whether sexist
language and framing exists are: Does sexist language create the linguistic
invisibility or marginality of women? Does it describe women as dependent on
men? Does it characterize women in stereotypical roles?[16]
I can discern in the Greek myths
related to goddess Athena, traces of the idea of domination of the mind over
the senses and that men were thought to be superior to women because of their
naturally ruling mind. The image of God, in which both men and women are included, offers
justice to women, unlike Plato who discriminates on the basis of soul-body.[17]
To human persons as ecological interrelated persons is to rethink the dualistic
philosophy on which our cultures were built.[18]
Ancient Athens, a Male Centric Democracy
Solon organized Athens as a male centric society. The
medieval viewpoint was an interpretation of Aristotle. The restriction of women
to domesticity and the systematization of poetic and philosophical misogynist
thought were catastrophic creations of the Greek classic era. The prevailing Athenian, Platonic,
androcentric, hierarchical worldview saw women as physically inferior to men;
the platonic worldview still prevails in many cases.
The citizens in classical Athens had to study
philosophy[19] and exercise rationality. Yet both the Athenian achievements and
the background to Aristotle’s philosophizing, depended on cruel treatment of
slaves and on the homemaking of women, who were not considered as citizens.[20] The agora, an open space at the heart of the city, became a
political, religious, social and economic focal point, from which slaves,
women, and strangers were excluded.[21] Athenian democracy created a system of discrimination against the
poor and among communities of different classes.
In classical Athens, goddesses were symbols
of the source and sustenance of life. Women assumed responsibility for
agriculture, pottery and weaving. Involved in these vital processes, they must
have held religious and social positions in Neolithic societies.[22] Solon organized Athens as a male centric society. Women were
banished to the house in a division of public and private. The free Greek male
citizen establishes his identity by subduing his excluded opposites: the
non-Greek, non-male, non-human. Plato and Aristotle’s hierarchical metaphor
depicted the female, the alien, and the animal as ‘natural’ inferiors in a
‘chain’ extending from the divine Logos to matter.[23] Slavery was the Greek model of all relationships of dominant Greek
males to ‘others.’ The ruling ‘mind’ uses other bodies as ‘tools.’ Greek-male
reason and the capacity to rule predominate. Women, slaves, barbarians and
animals have no rational capacity, but are servile tools of Greek male
sovereignty.[24] Femininity is a natural disability.[25] Procreative generative power is appropriated in a male capacity.
The female is passive recipient and incubator of the male seed.[26] According to Aeschylus,[27] proof was the birth of Athena from Zeus’ head. On this belief,
ancient Greeks based their view of the relationship between men and women. The
medieval viewpoint was interpreting Aristotle, for whom it is by its ‘nature’
that anything rules.[28] The restriction of women to domesticity and the systematization of philosophical
misogynist logic were catastrophic creations of the Greek classic era.[29]
Athena, the Protector goddess of
Athens
I can discern in the Greek myths
related to goddess Athena, traces of the idea of domination of the mind over
the senses and that men were thought to be superior to women because of their
naturally ruling mind. Athena was the Protector goddess of Athens, daughter of Zeus, who
was king of the Olympian gods. Zeus swallowed his wife Mitis, a goddess of
wisdom and prudence while pregnant with Athena, trying to minimize her power,
not to be inherited by their children. Zeus gave birth to Athena through his
head. Athena is depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear and shield. We
can see today Athena from a feminist view as the symbol of a woman-warrior working
for peace via war. She was wise like her mother, but inherited her father’s
ruling mind. Anaxagoras
extended the works of Mind into a cosmic governing principle, immanent to the
entire cosmos. Anaxagoras’ ‘mind’[30] in my view is met in Zeus’ ruling mind that Athena inherited from
her father; yet she was ‘ruled’ by her father. According to Aristotle, mind and
reason rule human desires.[31] Mitis lost her freedom existing within her husband as part of him.[32] The father of the gods internalized the female nature to an extent.
Athena was a symbol of her times and in her
life she was practicing the philosophy of Plato that supported ancient Greek
democracy. Her father Zeus having swallowed his wife in fact the female nature
gave birth to Athena from his head and in this way he was in her place, the ‘mind’,
the ruler and protector of Athens. Athena’s nature and in fact that of every
woman’s nature was thought to be derivative of the male that is her father’s
nature. She was bringing peace via war, while women need to protect life against
death and war. Athena, a mythical goddess is still admired, respected, and
thought to be a woman-symbol as goddess of wisdom, strategy and war. I argue
that in case we want to offer justice to women, from cultures of dominion,
dualisms, and hierarchies as the ancient Greek culture, supported by dualistic philosophies,
we must move to ones respecting women.[33]
To see human persons as ecological, interrelated beings is to rethink the
dualistic philosophy on which our cultures were built. Behind courageous, wise
Athena, lie the dualistic philosophy of reason, and the ideology of control of Plato.
We need to make a distinction between dualistic philosophy and a holistic
approach to reality.
Hestia, the ancient goddess of Hearth
Ancient goddess Hestia’s inextinguishable flame as
energy of all life extended to the entire world can symbolize the
interrelatedness of all life against dualisms, discrimination and closed systems
organized on the basis of socially understood as inferior or ruling classes.
Gods, even as human mythological projections, can tell
us what an improved human being meant for the Athenians.[34]
Athena was a woman soldier working for peace via war. Yet in Hestia’s myth and
in the symbol of her flaring circle standing for self-consciousness, infinity,
wholeness, and integration of the manifold, we can trace people’s desire for
home-peace, extended towards the city, the country; even the entire world. ‘Hestia,’[35] an ancient Greek goddess didn't require the trappings of power or
adventure like Athena. She never involved herself in the fights and
machinations of other gods and goddesses. Her love inspired the love and trust
of others in return. She never refused hospitality to a stranger. Emphasis was
placed on the requirement to not ‘take advantage’ of a female guest.
The source of Hestia’s sacred fire was
believed to be the lava at the earth’s centre. Fire was carried from her hearth
in the town to light the fire of a new community. The Olympic torch is an
example of her living flame. The ritual of a bride and groom lighting a candle
together from the flames of their two parental candelabra symbolized the
creation of a new family from two. A house was a place where everybody’s being
and relationships are nurtured, after exposure to the chaos of the external world.
Hestia upgraded the idea of ‘home’ as the centre of human life, family life,
city life, the life of the new cities, and the life of the entire world. As
goddess of architecture and regional planner, she intended that houses should
be built from the centre out, with the centre being a hearth with her sacred
flame.
The Athenian, Platonic, androcentric, hierarchical, dualistic worldview
saw women as physically inferior to men. Science has dissolved these ideas
today, yet the platonic worldview still prevails in many cases. Hestia’s inextinguishable flame as energy of all life extended to
the entire world can symbolize the interrelatedness of all life, expressed in
theology and the sciences, today.[36]
Epilogue
Α worldview becomes the overall belief system
about the world, the values out of which we live, our place and role in the
scheme of things, of what is thought as good or moral.[37]
Worldviews become consciously or unconsciously the criterion for what we do in
our everyday lives, and absolutes if used uncritically and can mislead us.
Rosemary Radford Ruether’s[38]
review shows how from cultures of dominion, dualisms, hierarchies supported by
sciences, philosophies, and theologies we must move to ones respecting the
‘other’.[39]
Plato and Aristotle used a dualistic metaphor for female, as ‘natural’ inferior
to male. Metaphors, models, and theories provide an ever-widening context of
explanation, where phenomena within or across fields are linked in networks.
They are not pictures of reality but paradigm-dependent, partial, needing
alternative or complementary models and care against loss of metaphorical
tension.[40]
Sciences do not offer a safe method to show the reality of nature or the nature
of reality. They offer metaphors to discuss it.[41]
A holistic worldview as contemporary
understanding of the interrelatedness and interdependence of all that exist knows
has its limits, just as a new finding is not final or absolute. The theoretical
work brings to consciousness the past as basis to knowing the present; it makes
us aware of the values hidden in worldviews, taking them as true without
questioning them. To know patriarchy, domination, and dualism and their interconnections
is to open the possibility of dismantling them by denunciation. In fact
worldviews are not closed systems. They change in space-time, sometimes they
overlap each other; elements of a next one appear in an older one, while older
elements are kept in new ones. In the ancient Athenian era the dualistic
worldview was prevailing. The inferiority of women as according to the
dualistic worldview was thought to be was applied to Athena’s life since her
father swallowed the female nature- her mother and since she was born from her
father’s head. Male Zeus logic- νους was the ruler behind Athena. Ιn this same context the olive tree becomes the
symbol of Athena, a symbol of peace, when she planted an olive tree to claim
the Athenian land.[42]
Yet, Athena is depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear and shield-
symbols of war. We can see Athena from a feminist view as the symbol of a
woman-warrior working for peace via war. Both the dualistic worldview and the
holistic one are mixed up in her person. Traces of the contemporary holistic
worldview of interrelatedness are applied to Hestia’s life and symbols.
Revising our worldview in the light of
scripture is part of the renewal of our own selves. A worldview is a matter of
the shared everyday experience of humanity; it could belong to an order of
cognition more basic than that of science or theory.[43]
Evanthia Adamtziloglou is the first Greek theologian who discusses feminist
theology and hermeneutics.[44] In her
book[45]
referring to 1 Cor. 11.3 she analyzes the meaning of ‘head’ trying an
Christological witness of the equality of both sexes.
But I want you to
realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of
Christ is God.
Christianity know God the Father and Christ
the Son as one God (along with the Holy Spirit as Trinity), equal persons and
consubstantial. On this Christological basis the dyad of two persons: man and
woman must be known as equal.
Based on 1 Thessalonians 2.7,11,17 and Gal
3.26 she refers to the NT language, influenced by the writers’ patriarchal
background as a means of exclusion.[46]
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of
God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into
Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither
slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal 3. 26-28.
In her third book[47]
she analyzes the exegesis of Gal 3.28c in the light of Gen 1.26-27 in patristic, both Greek
and Latin, and in the late 20th century.[48]
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
In the word ἄνθρωπος (mankind
in many English translations) both sexes are originally included. Yet, it came
to mean ‘man’ in English biblical
translations, where the term man represents
humankind. Feminists do not want to be merely represented; they want to be
included as in the original Greek text. Otherwise the anthropology of women
becomes in English translations androcentric. The problem of non inclusive interpretation becomes
Christological when Υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου appears in English translations, as the Son of Man.[49]
In Acts we read[50]:
“From one man he made all the nations that
they should inhabit the whole earth.” In the original Greek text the phrase: “From
one man he made all the nations” appears as “ἐποίησέ τε ἐξ ἑνὸς αἵματος πᾶν
ἔθνος ἀνθρώπων- from one blood every
human nation was created”. Man is an exclusive concept as
well as word, representing women but not including them. The original words in
the Greek text “ἐξ ἑνὸς αἵματος” are inclusive; one blood could be both male and female; one blood includes the entire humanity
holistically.
[1] Heather Eaton, Introducing Ecofeminist Theologies, p.61.
[2] Article based on my Thesis Hope
for Suffering Ecosystems of Our Planet,
Contextualization of Christological Perichoresis for the Ecological Crisis (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2014).
[3] Rosemary
Radford Ruether, Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist
Theology of Earth Healing (New
York: HarperCollins, 1992), pp.24-6.
[4] Πλάτων, Τίμαιος, σελ.59-98,
231-4.
[6] Πλάτων, Πολιτεία (ή περί δικαίου) Τ 2, Δ΄
βιβλίο, 443, Κείμενο Μετάφραση (Αθήνα: Κάκτος, 1992), σελ.176-81.
[8] Ruether, Gaia and God, pp.24-6.
[11] Chris Clarke, Living in Connection (Warminster: Creation Spirituality Books,
2002), pp.113, 142, 69, 155.
[12] The logic of dualism, of colonization and of domination are ideas
that appear in the book of Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature
(London: Routledge, 1993), pp.55,190,194.
[13] Val Plumwood, ‘Androcentrism and Anthropocentrism: Parallels and
Politics’ The Twenty Second Annual Richard Baker Philosophy Colloquium on
Ecofeminist perspectives,’ (University of Dayton, OH, 30 March 1995):12-13,
cited in Eaton, Introducing Ecofeminist Theologies, p.59.
[14] Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature Women, Ecology and the
Scientific Revolution (New York: HarperSanFrancisco,
1980).
[15] Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women
in the International Division of Labour (London: Zed Books, 1986).
[17] In her book
Ruether seeks to assess the cultural and social roots that have promoted
destructive relations between men and women, between ruling and subjugated
human groups and the destruction of the rest of the biotic communion of which
humans are an interdependent part. Ruether also sifts through the legacy of the
Christian and western cultural heritage to find usable ideas that could nourish
a healed relation to each other and to the earth, Ruether,
Gaia and God. pp.3, 22-26.
[18]
For a further discussion on dualisms within the human person as soul-body see
in: Ioanna Sahinidou, ‘Challenging Dualisms’, International Journal of
Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, Academicians’ Research Center, May
2015, pp.14-19.
[22] Carol
Christ visits the artifacts in the Knossos-Cretan museum dated from 6000 to
3000 B.C.E. Carol P. Christ, Odyssey with
the Goddess (New York: Continuum, 1995), p.85.
[23] Πλάτωνος, Τίμαιος, Αρχαίον
κείμενον, XLIV 91, 92, (Εν Αθήναις: Ελληνική Εταιρεία των
Ελληνικών Γραμμάτων Πάπυρος, 1956), σελ.180-184. See also:
Αριστοτέλους Πολιτικά Α,
κεφ. Ε 13, 260α 5-15 (Εν Αθήναις: Επιστημονική Εταιρεία Γραμμάτων
Πάπυρος, 1939), σελ.55-8.
[24] Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gaia and God, An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing (London:
HarperCollins, 1994), p.184.
[28] Αριστοτέλους, Πολιτικά Α, κεφ. Ε 13, 1260α 5-15
(Εν Αθήναις: Επιστημονική Εταιρεία Γραμμάτων Πάπυρος, 1939), σελ.55-8.
[29] Sarah B. Pomeroy, Θεές,
Πόρνες, Σύζυγοι και Δούλες, Μετάφραση: Μάριος Μπλέτας (Αθήνα: Ινστιτούτο
του Βιβλίου-Α. Καρδαμίτσα,
2008), σελ.318-9.
[31] «ἄρχεσθαι τῷ σώματι
ὑπὸ τῆς ψυχῆς,
καὶ τῷ παθητικῷ μορίῳ ὑπὸ
τοῦ νοῦ καὶ τοῦ μορίου
τοῦ λόγον ἔχοντος» Αριστοτέλης, Άπαντα, Τ. 1, Πολιτικά 1, 1254b, 7-10, (Αθήνα: Κάκτος, 1992), σελ.64-5.
[32] Ησίοδος, Άπαντα
Θεογονία, (Αθήνα: Κάκτος, 1992), σελ.84-5.
[35]
Hestia means: fireplace, focal point, hearth, home.
[38] Ruether explores how Western religious and scientific traditions
that influenced our relationships with one another have led to today’s
eco-crisis. Ruether, Gaia and God, pp.173-201.
[40] McFague, ‘Models in Science’ see in: Metaphorical Theology, pp.102, 194.
[41] Brian Martin, Chain Reaction,
No. 68, (February 1993), pp. 38-39; reprinted in The Raven, vol. 6, no. 4 (October-December 1993), pp.353-356.
[42] Herodoti Historiarum Libri v. viii., Cap. 55 (Typis B. G Trubneet B.
G. Ted.), In aedibus B. G. Teubneri, Lipsiae, 1884, p.245.
[43] Albert M. Wolters, Creation Regained (Grand Rapids: William
B. Eerdmans, 1985), pp.2-9.
[44] Kasselouri-Hatzivassiliadi, ‘The Gender Factor in Contemporary
Orthodox Biblical Research’, p.109
[47] Ευανθία Αδαμτζίλογλου, Οὸκ ἔνι ἄρσεν και θῆλυ Τa βασιλικά χαρίσματα των δύο φύλων «Neither male nor
female…” The royal charismata of the two sexes (Γαλ. 3,28γ, Γεν. 1,26-27 (Θεσσαλονίκη: University Studio Press,
1998).
[49] Some English
translations where the ‘Son of Man’ instead of Υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου in Matthew 8:20 appears
are: ESV, KJG, KJV, MRD, NIV etc.
