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Christian Goodwin S3S

How much can we learn about Ancient Greek Women’s


lives from vase paintings?

A surprisingly useful way we can learn about the roles of women in that
time is through paintings on vases. After looking through many different
vases I have learnt a lot and have chosen a few that give us the most
information. 490-480 BC British museum

This vase shows a symposium in ancient Greece. The


symposium took place in a room called the andron
where the women are providing entertainment for the
male guests. These women were called hetaira. This is
an example of how women were not as highly
respected as men. The women were still paid to be
here but they were just entertainment. They would
provide entertainment through music, dance and even
talking about politics. These women were skilled. They
were usually more skilled than women who worked in
houses. If women weren’t providing entertainment like
this, then they were likely housewives that managed
the slaves and helped around house. Hetaira would be
more free than the housewives who would stay
indoors. It’s odd that the skilled women were less
respected than the less skilled married women. It
seems that the respect wouldn’t be so dependent on
marriage. The respect due to marriage is greater with
their even being religious events just for married
women as well as just for women which aren’t shown
on the vases.

550-540 BC Metropolitan museum of art

This picture shows women spinning and


working with wool. There are no men in this
picture because they would process wool in
the room called the gynaikon which is the
women’s room. The fact that they had a
women’s room meant that they felt there
was a large difference between men and
women so much that they were separated
by rooms. This shows a lack of respect or a
different style of living. Especially since
women were usually paid less than men
and stayed around in the house.
520-500 BC British Museum

This picture shows women carrying water


proving that women went out of the
house at least to carry water. This means
that it wasn’t only women at parties like
the symposia who went out of the
houses. It seems interesting that the
people going out into the heat to carry
the water were women. However, this
picture doesn’t say whether men went
out, it seems that since there are no men
that this is true. This is another job that
would have been had to be done on top
of being responsible for her children in
the house.

From these vases I have seen a wide range of jobs for ancient greek women. The
jobs have a varied level of respect attached to them and they tell us of a system
where women are usually under-represented.

440 Total word count

Bibliography

Ancient Greek Jobs-Hayden Middleton

In Search of the Greeks- James Renshaw

Symposia and Women on Geek Vases-


Peter Evansand and Lyle Eveille

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