2020 IB Extended Essays

(Eva Canterella, 1981, p.52). Nevertheless, this can be exemplified through the play Medea and the horror of mothers killing their children, which represents men’s ideology and fear of female denial of childrearing. During the period of Medea women were only “the more incubator or soil for the man who sows the seed” because “the only parent is he who mounts” (Clauss, 1997). Thus, by Medea sacrificing her children and Jason’s children, Medea strips Jason of his most important part of life and she even kills his new wife and ruins “his chance for future offspring” (Clauss, 1997). Subsequently, Jason only cared about his children and gave no thought towards his new dead wife and thus solidifying men’s ideology as women only being useful for childbearing. Nevertheless, the play Medea was partially accurate depicts women in realities struggle against domestic oppression. The play Medea also characterised patriarchal anxieties consisting of woman withholding an heir. Having an heir was a necessity and important for men to have sons to carry on the legacy of the family name, property and the family (Vincent Hannity,2019). With women having control over their sexual reproduction, they could make men fear and distrust women. However, surely enough men caught onto female’s withdrawal of sexual reproduction and placed laws surrounding childbirth. Women were also expected to be married as virgins and were forced into an arranged marriage by their father. However, unlike women, men could have more than one partner. According to Barry Powell, a Classical Greek Historian, he states that “Although male gods regularly pursued mortal women, it was altogether shameful for a goddess to consort with a … man.” (Classical myth, 2014). However, Athenian art suggests that women who were companions for more than one male were often depicted on Attic black-figure and red-figure vase-painting as “prostitutes and hetairai, who differed in their social status, their training and education” and “implied sexual activity, which, obviously, were not the attributes of a respectful Athenian wife” (Fischer, 2013). Thus, signifying the double standards and bias