As Odysseus -- the homeless beggar -- sleeps under the stars, let's let him rest there. Let's ask about Penelope and other women of the Odyssey.
Penelope did an excellent job of holding the 100+ suitors at bay for a long period of time. While it seems that the suitors have control of the situation on Ithaka, on the other hand, Penelope also has areas of control over them, and it is her success at holding them at arm's length that keeps the story running.
(...suitors spinning their wheels
while Penelope spins her web,
and suitors going nowhere
until they meet 'nobody!)
Penelope's actions and tactical thinking keep Odysseus' journey significant in that home still awaits (if she married, his trip would lose urgency and meaning), and she keeps them in situ for the final denouement. Penelope rules! Arete rules! Kalypso rules (until Hera trumps her). Well, women like Penelope rule to some extent, and that is the point here: To what extent is women's status in the Odyssey high? Low? Empowered? Marginalized? Free and active, or culturally imprisoned and dependent? Significant in her own person? Or a status deprived of most human dignity, and instead, a status more like property?
Sarah Pomeroy wrote in her book Goddesses, etc: "Penelope wins the highest admiration for her chastity," but Pomeroy tag-teamed this (highly) qualified excellence with, "Even the virtuous members of the sex are to be forever sullied by Clytemnestra's sin. This generalization is the first in a long history of hostility toward women in Western literature." [21-2] ...hmmmm......
Sarah Pomeroy is a top-shelf scholar in the field of both Classical and Women's History. So we must first assume that these statements are not contradictory, but in fact she meant to show two sides of western humanity -- and one of those sides is not very positive concerning women, while the other side is highly negative.
Moses Finley made a similar statement:
Homer fully reveals what remained true for the whole of antiquity, that women were held to be naturally inferior and therefore limited in their function to the to the production of offspring and the performance of household duties, and that the meaningful social relationships and the strong personal attachments were sought and found among men. [The World of Odysseus, p.128]
Let's test these generalizations. What statements, situations and/or sentiments seem positive concerning women in the Odyssey? Is there any sense of Homeric excellence, equality, superiority, admirable qualities pertaining to women? Can we analyze and define a Homeric status of women? Please keep in mind: It might be (or not) that in later Classical history, the status of women changed from what is pictured in the Odyssey.
Cite any female, any book of the Odyssey, any statement or piece of evidence you see that relates. Then let's balance that with seriously negative views like Agamemnon's speech in Hades or any other you see. And let's keep this question alive as we progress through the poem. Once the evidence is out, then we can see it, understand some of it and its ambiguities, try to balance it in all its complexities, and then come to some sort of conclusion concerning the Odyssey and the view of women it contains overall. Or we can at least try to..... Then we can apply these researches to the ideas referred to in the secondary sources cited above.
I'd suggest, at this point, to read and re-read the Collingwood-summary of what history is, what it is about, and how it proceed. Cheers....
