From Ed Cryer@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jul 7 20:14:18 2023
This tutelary goddess of ancient Athens confounds modern feminists.
There she was in that old patriarchal society; writ large in Homer,
giant statues all over the Athenian Acropolis and elsewhere (There's a
recorded drunken riot in 13th c Constantinople where a "giant statue of
Athena" was destroyed, but was it Athena Promachos from the Acropolis or another Athena from elsewhere?).
In Homer she has all the respect and reverence due to an Olympian. In
classical Athens she wore gold and ivory. Why? Why didn't that
patriarchal society keep her locked up and out of harm's way?
She always seems to have favoured men. She had young girls to weave her
a new peplos each year, but she stood in the front battle-lines with men.
It doesn't add up for me. There's something here in the man-woman mix
that I can't fathom.
She wasn't Marilyn Monroe, trapped in a male-dominated view. She had
power, and she won.