by Carrie Frost

Created on: October 28, 2009

In Greek mythology women are sometimes portrayed as the hero, the villain, or the victim. In one story where woman is almost portrayed as the villain is when Zeus gave them to man as punishment for what Prometheus did. In another story, like the one of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche is portrayed as both hero and victim. She makes a mistake by not trusting in Cupid when he told her that she should never try seeing him and running him off. When she realizes how foolish she had been, she decides to go to Aphrodite and serve her. She is constantly put into situations where she could possibly die, but refuses to give in because she loves Cupid. By fighting and never giving up, she is a hero and by being "tortured" by Aphrodite, she is the victim. There are also stories of women who gloat about how they are even more beautiful than the goddesses or that they can do things better than a goddess ever could. These women are very often ruined in some way. They may be killed or turned into an animal.

Greek stories have always had different portrayals of women even when talking about the goddesses. These women are strong and dangerous, but beautiful and soft. They take their vengeance out of jealousy or watch over the weak and powerless. They reward the loyal and smite the blasphemous. Goddesses always had two sides. One was always loving and good and the other was dark and malicious. Maybe this is because they were born from chaos. In chaos nothing is what it seems and everything is as it is. Things are broken and damaged or perfect with imperfections. Maybe this is also why the human women where made the way they were. Zeus made them to punish men, but they grew into a strong a fair people. They could be vengeful or loving, kind or down right dirty. Women were arguably the most powerful of the sexes. Not because they always fought in battle, but because with their beauty came temptation which was the downfall of many a Greek man and what caused Zeus the most trouble.

I'm not saying that women were not fighters. There was many trial that a woman had to go through, like Psyche, to get back the one they loved. Through sheer will and determination they made there way precariously through everything that was thrown at them because they had to. So whether they were hero, villain, or victim, they had a great amount of power.

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