Position of Women in Ancient Greek Sport

                         Position of women in Ancient Greek sport

In order to establish the position women had in Ancient Greek sport, we must first determine the roles they had within the 600BCE time period. As we all know men were the dominating gender in those days for a very long time.

The Role of women in Ancient Greece as the common idea of most societies even today, this is the world of men. Women are born in order to serve for their men. It was not much different in the times of ancient Greece. Women didn’t have any right to vote, serve on juries or own property. Women in ancient Greece couldn’t manage even their own property because not only did they have zero control over handling money or spending it, they didn’t even have right to spend money for the expenses of their household.

Wives were expected to bare children, excel in tasks such as spinning and weaving, and to manage the household (Spears, B. 1984). Some of the women in Ancient Greece were treated as prostitutes, their main duty was to entertain men in both a sexual and a social sense. The prostitutes could be considered as slaves because men could use them as prostitutes, singers, dancers or flute girls. Women were always seen as potential risk. Because of that reason women had to be under supervision. The only area where women counted as the absolute authority was religion. The main duties of women in religion could be arranged as like the laying out of a corpse and its ritual lamentation. In addition, to have their active roles in daily worship, they were also the members of religious associations. They might act on three levels in these associations: as ordinary worshippers, as the performers of ritual tasks and finally as the priestesses. Besides, almost all household work was under the responsibility of women. Also, women were responsible for the supervision of slaves.

In ancient Greece, a woman who often appeared outside her home would be viewed not much positively. If a woman appeared outside, she could only be tolerated if this was an economic necessity. Women rarely left their quarters except to attend religious functions (Spears, B. 1984). Some of the jobs that women could work freely were such as wool workers, nurses ribbon sellers, midwives and casual agricultural labors. So, what are the main roles of women in Ancient Greece Sport? During the Greek period, the involvement of women in sport was minimal. The worlds of men and women were quite separate. Men had the dominant role in public life in Ancient Greece. They were engaged in politics and public events, while women were often encouraged to stay in their home. The Olympic Games were for males only, while in another part of Olympia, women had a small event of their own in honor of Hera, the ancient Heraean Games. Like men’s sport, women also preferred foot races only. The Heraea champions won olive crowns, cow or ox meat from the animal sacrificed to Hera and the right to engrave their names on the statues (Spears, B. 1984).