Women in Euripides

Euripides (c. 480 – c. 406 BC) is one of the authors of classical Greece who took a particular interest in the condition of women within the Greek world. In a predominantly patriarchal society, he undertook, through his works, to explore and sometimes challenge the injustices faced by women and certain social or moral norms concerning them. His female characters, often endowed with detailed psychology and artistic depth, were central to his tragedies and made up almost all of his characters who thought and philosophized. Euripides portrayed women not only as capable of possessing true intelligence but also used them to convey critiques of the condition of women to the audience of his plays.

The playwright developed a series of original literary or artistic techniques to humanize his female characters, offering them a unique capacity for action and thought within Greek tragedy. He frequently subverted myths to rework the roles of heroines in his works and challenge their traditional narratives. Medea and Helen are two figures that Euripides significantly redefined in this dynamic, using them to question Athenian masculine ideology and highlight the social issues affecting Athenian women. Euripides addressed a range of social, political, or familial issues that impacted the women of his society, focusing on female sexual desire and the taboos surrounding it, openly criticizing marriage, the intellectual marginalization of women in Greece, and implicitly attacking authors of misogynistic narratives, such as Hesiod. His philosophical and literary advancements credit him with, in a way, creating women as subjects in Greek literature.

These artistic and philosophical stances have led Euripides to be targeted by Aristophanes as a misogynist; by portraying women as capable of wrongdoing, including sexual misconduct, Euripides would be undermining women's interests. This accusation is no longer upheld by modern scholarship, which notes, on the contrary, that Euripides occupies a unique place in Greek tragedy on this subject. However, despite these positions and perspectives, the playwright's writings remain marked by a sexism and misogyny typical of his time and the circles in which he operated.