Medea Women and Femininity Quotes

Euripides boldly states the central theme of the play: the sorry state of the female in Greece. This theme popped up in many of his plays. He is noted for taking up the cause of women as well as the next lowest group on the totem pole: slaves.

This isn't necessarily accurate, as girls' fathers paid dowries. Still, though, Medea's outrage is more than justified. Women were basically bought and sold like cattle. Though they were above slaves on the social ladder, they were at times still treated like nothing more than property.

Women were in some ways prisoners. If they got sold off to a man who mistreated them, there was really no good escape route. The rest of society would reject them if they left their husband.

Is Medea by some standards a "masculine" woman? Here she says she'd rather do battle than give birth. In some ways, this is a rejection of the foundation of the traditional role of women.

Even a woman as powerful as Medea feels the need to be protected by a man. You'd think that she be all right on her own. She does have a couple of dragons at her disposal. The fact that she still wants a man around, even after her last one dissed her so badly, seems to show just how deeply entrenched patriarchy was in Greek society.

The Chorus seems to be almost sounding a battle cry for a feminist revolution. We wonder how this would've been received by the all-male audience that attended the plays in ancient Athens. Of course, it would've been performed by male actors as well.

The Chorus is pointing out that their culture's depictions of women have all been created by men. This idea, that their entire culture is male centered, wouldn't pop up again until the twentieth century. Medea was in many ways ahead of its time.

Is the play damaging to women in some way? It's definitely revolutionary in its blatantly pro-woman themes. We have to question, though: if you're trying to champion the feminine cause, why make your heroine a serial killer? Aristophanes, Euripides's comic contemporary, would later satirize Medea for that very reason.

Could it be argued that Jason and the patriarchal (male-run) society that he represents turned Medea into this monster? Perhaps the lack of respect for her in part drove her to her horrendous actions.

In Greek society women mostly only had power through their husbands. The loss of his bed would've been bad news.