"Female identity”: rewritings of Greek and Biblical myths by contemporary women writers

Download

index.pdf

Date

2011

Author

Dörschel, Funda Başak

Metadata

Show full item record

Item Usage Stats

1258
views

726
downloads

This study approaches myths as patriarchal narratives and ideological tools and it argues that representations of women from an androcentric perspective in Greek mythology are also observed in the Bible. This study argues that patriarchy as a universal ideology has produced the same gender stereotypes beginning from Ancient Greece. Consequently, Western literature, which has the Classical and Biblical tradition as its main source, has reinforced the same female images throughout its history. Besides, it is suggested that, the Western canon failed to create alternative female models for the binary opposition of submissive wives versus the female evil figure and the main stereotypical characteristics had not been challenged until the emergence of feminist criticism. This study thus aims to discuss myths as one of the foremost sites of the construction of ideological subjects and it analyses the rewritings of Greek, Old Testament and New Testament myths by contemporary women writers in fiction; namely Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Firebrand, Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent, India Edghill’s Queenmaker, Gail Sidonie Sobat’s The Book of Mary and Michéle Roberts’ The Wild Girl and it explores the textual strategies that are employed by women writers in order to subvert and revise the patriarchal ideology in myths, to come up with alternative definitions of female identity and to weave gynocentric myths.

Subject Keywords

Gender identity., Patriarchy

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12613185/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/21198

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Considering the role of men in gender agenda setting: conceptual and policy issues Erturk, Y (2004-01-01) The international gender equality agenda evolved into one of mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes. Within this process, the role of men gained increasing attention in the debates on gender equality. This resulted in the inclusion of 'men's role' as one of the themes of the agenda of the Commission on the Status of Women for the year 2004. While this is another step forward in the global efforts for achieving equality between women and men, its potential risks should not be ove...
Gender on Self-Definitions in Work-Related and Relational Contexts: Are Women and Men Different or Similar? Küçükkömürler, Sanem; Baltacı, Sinem (2017-11-10) Beliefs and expectations about gender differences have been existed throughout the history. In these beliefs and expectations, the basic assumption was that "women and men are different". Studies in the literature showed that within-group differences are greater than between-group differences for gender-related issues [1]. However beliefs and expectations about gender differences still lead people to express gender schema-consistent manifestations. Therefore different gender related beliefs about self may l...
Beyond prejudice as simple antipathy: hostile and benevolent sexism across cultures. Glick, P; et. al. (American Psychological Association (APA), 2000-11-01) The authors argue that complementary hostile and benevolent components of sexism exist across cultures. Male dominance creates hostile sexism IHS), but men's dependence on women fosters benevolent sexism (BS)-subjectively positive attitudes that put women on a pedestal but reinforce their subordination. Research with 15,000 men and women in 19 nations showed that (a) HS and BS are coherent constructs that correlate positively across nations, but (b) HS predicts the ascription of negative and BS the ascripti...
The Relationships between Ambivalent Sexism and Religiosity among Turkish University Students Tasdemır, Nagihan; Sakallı, Nuray (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2010-04-01) This study explored the relationships among hostile sexism (HS), benevolent sexism (BS), and religiosity for men and women in Turkey, where Islam is the predominant religion. 73 male and 93 female university students completed measures of ambivalent sexism and religiosity. Replicating previous work with Christians, religiosity was a significant correlate of BS when HS was controlled, for both men and women. As predicted, and in contrast to previous research with Christians, partial correlations indicated th...
Gender roles and women’s status in central asia and anatolia between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries Dalkesen, Nilgün; Togan, İsenbike; Department of History (2007) This study examines changing gender roles and women’s status under the light of töre/yasa and sharī‘a among the Inner Asian Turkic and Mongolian societies and Ottomans in Anatolia especially between the thirteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries. In this frame, this study traces gender roles and women’s status in Inner Asia before the influence of Islamic culture and civilizations by using oral and written sources as well as anthropological studies. It also focuses on the formation of töre and...

Citation Formats

F. B. Dörschel, ““Female identity”: rewritings of Greek and Biblical myths by contemporary women writers ,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2011.