Classical studies, patriarchy and feminism: The view from 1986

Abstract

Approaching the study of Greco-Roman civilization from a feminist perspective presents special problems: classical studies is one of the most conservative, hierarchical and patriarchal of academic fields, and women classicists, even those professing themselves feminists, remain strongly male-oriented. The historic use of classical studies as a self-enhancing cultural emblem and a gatekeeping mechanism designed to control access to education and power explains its present appeal to reactionary elitists, along with its tendency to attract female practitioners with an intense ‘daughterly’ ego-investment in the prevailing system. Research on women in antiquity, though popular and well-regarded among male and female classicists, is therefore conservative by feminist standards and makes relatively little use of new cross-disciplinary scholarship on women. Critical neglect and/or trivialization of the work of the several women poets of ancient Greece provides a telling example of how knowledge that does not fit male disciplinary paradigms can be dismissed, even by women scholars doing women in antiquity research. Recent critiques of the field by both mainstream and feminist members nevertheless offer hope for gradual disciplinary change.