Double Standard Of Women In The Odyssey

In The Odyssey, Homer puts strong emphasis on the different roles of women through the characters. Homer uses mature women to show how strong women can still be weak, and he uses sexually active women to show the double standard between men and women. Women are portrayed to be nothing but housewife’s and used for sex, yet there is still emphasis that they need men around in order to be strong and kept together.

Women are seen as nothing more than housewives and for sex and are seen as nothing more than an object. “Go therefore back in the house, and take up your own work, the loom and the distaff, and see to it that your handmaidens ply their work also; but the men must see to discussion, all men, but I most of all. For mine is the power in this household.” Essentially Telemachus is saying that a woman’s role is nothing more than being a housewife, and that the man is the leader and the decision maker. Homer uses mature women to show how even the women who seem to have it all together still have flaws. Penelope is loyal to Odysseus while he is away even though her house is full of suitors who want to marry her, although, she never makes the

Kalypso even addresses the double standard directly saying “You are hard-hearted, you gods, and jealous beyond all creatures beside, when you are resentful toward the goddess for sleeping openly with such men as each has made her true husband.”. Homer uses Kalypso to demonstrate the fact that when women have sex, they are seen as sluts, but yet when men have sex, they are praised or cheered on. Even though Homer may never say it directly, the reader wants Penelope to stay loyal to Odysseus, but doesn’t care about Odysseus going off and having sex with other women. Another example of the double standard between men and women is how the maids are executed solely because they were sleeping with the suitors, but the suitors aren’t