athenian/greek context

• Annas - “Athenian women in Plato’s day led suppressed and powerless lives. They were not legal persons.”
• Pomeroy - "The separation of the sexes was spatially emphasised"
• Osborne - "There was an inconsistency about men's depictions of women. On the one hand, they were seen as the all-embracing, archetypal source and providers of life; on the other hand, as she-monsters of outrageous and devilish cunning"
• Dover - Comes up with ‘active vs passive’ as ‘dominant pursuer’ vs ‘subordinate pursued’ erastes vs eromenos
• Foucault - define active and passive into penetrated and penetrator
• Waterfield - “In ancient Athens, homoeroticism was considered perfectly natural, especially in the leisured classes.”

  BUT … “To say that homoeroticism was acceptable within Athenian society is not to say that any given member of the society accepted it.”
• Freeman - “Throughout most of the Greek and Roman world, there was less tolerance for same-sex relations between women.”
• Jones - Estimates that only 1-3% of the Athenian population engaged in pederasty