Episode Details

We sat down recently with Associate Professor Rebecca Futo Kennedy to talk all about Ancient Greek women, specifically in relation to Athens.

Futo Kennedy teaches in Classical Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Environmental Studies at Denison University. Kennedy holds a BA in Classical Studies, an MA in Greek and Latin, and completed her PhD on the representation of Athena in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles at Ohio State University. Kennedy’s most recent monograph is entitled Immigrant Women in Athens: Gender, Ethnicity, and Citizenship in the Classical City.

Special Episode – Ancient Greek Women with Rebecca Futo Kennedy

In this conversation we explore the terminology and semantic fields of meaning connected with women in Ancient Greece including some of the persistent misconceptions and assumptions that come along with language. For example, the word hetaira is quite well-known, but what did the ancient Greeks really mean when they used the term?

How did women fit into the social structures and hierarchies of the ancient Greek city of Athens? What were women's lives like and what does the remaining evidence suggest about how they lived and the meaning they saw in their own experiences?

We also delve into the complexities attendant upon understanding metics – foreigners in Athens and what this category meant when you were also a woman. And the conversation rounds out with a consideration of poverty in ancient Athens and the challenges in studying this subject.

Some Sources

A number of sources and scholars are mentioned in this episode. Here's a few that come up: 

Jean-Leon Gerome Greek Interior 1848

• Brown, Peter 1989. The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750 
• Cecchet, Lucia 2015.