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Women in Classical Athens

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I've listed this article for peer review because, following the article's successful GA nomination, and encouraged by the reviewer there, I intend to bring the article to Featured Status. From reviewers who aren't classicists/historians, I would especially appreciate making sure the article is accessible to lay readers; from all I would like to know if there are any things which don't comply with the WP:MOS (I try, but I'm constantly coming across new guidelines on formatting that I have previously missed!), and if there is anything you think needs to be added.

Thanks, Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:54, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Midnightblueowl

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  • Concepts like "free women" and "citizen men" are introduced straight away in the opening lede but perhaps are unfamiliar to people without a pre-existing knowledge of Classical Athenian society. Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:57, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I've wikilinked "citizen men" to Athenian citizenship, which will give at least some context. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:28, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Classical Athenian women married young, and were responsible for bearing and raising children, and looking after the household." "and" appears twice, with the sentence reading as being a little repetitive. Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:57, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    There is rather a lot of "and"ing in that sentence, it is true. I have split it in two and expanded slightly. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:28, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Sarah Pomeroy suggests" - maybe explain who Pomeroy is, give her a job description of some sort. Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:57, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem with this is that I refer to a whole bunch of classicists/ancient historians (Sarah Pomeroy, Janet Grossman, John Gould, Kostas Vlassopoulos, David Cohen, David Schaps, Nicole Loraux, Eva Cantarella, Simon Goldhill, Christopher Carey, Deborah Lyons), and the way I see it, it would be daft to say "Classicist Sarah Pomeroy" and not do the same for the others, but it wouldn't really add much to prefix all of those names with "classicist". Obviously they are classicists: that's why they are being heavily cited in an article about classical Athens! On the other hand, I could add more detail ("feminist historian Sarah Pomeroy", "legal historian Eva Cantarella"), but it risks cluttering the article up with crap. I shall think about it... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:28, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I would recommend going with "Classicist" in all of these cases; I for instance tried to add "archaeologist" before each name when I was working on Coldrum Long Barrow. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:20, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I must say I find this irritating (especially because I don't like omitting the participle). In a specialist subject like this, you should only describe people who aren't some type of classicist. Johnbod (talk) 03:44, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from SlimVirgin

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Hi Caeciliusinhorto, this is very interesting, and it would be a welcome addition to our FAs. Thank you for writing it.

I wonder whether you should mention whether women attended the theatre. There's the reference in Life of Aeschylus to pregnant women miscarrying when watching The Eumenides. Simon Goldhill in the Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy discusses whether women attended the Great Dionysia (particularly from p. 62). There's also JSTOR 284448, which I can email you if you can't see it. SarahSV (talk) 01:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can get hold of the Henderson article and on Goldhill in the Cambridge Companion, at least. I'll see whether I can dig up Life of Aeschylus. It's probably worth a mention, though... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 09:07, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@SlimVirgin: I've added a paragraph on the debate on Athenian women's participation in theatre to the section on religion. What do you think? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:47, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It looks fine, though it's supported only by the material I suggested. It might be worth looking further afield. SarahSV (talk) 22:48, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I did have a look around, but it looked like the pickings were fairly slim. There's Goldhill (1994), which I don't currently have access to but can get hold of, which IIRC comes down slightly more decisively than Goldhill (1997) against the view that women were able to attend, and Podlecki (1990), which I haven't tracked down, but Goldhill says along with Henderson "forms the fullest defence of the presence of women". Cantarella (2005) says that "recent scholarship tends to believe" that women did attend the theatre, but most unhelpfully doesn't actually cite any scholars in support of this; meanwhile Davidson 2005 says that recent scholarship is inconclusive and that he isn't going to get involved in the debate, but cites Goldhill and Henderson. Finally Katz (1998) says that the evidence is inconclusive, likely to remain that way, and cites (once again!) Henderson and Goldhill. Thus concludes my (not at all thorough yet) review of the literature. (Our article on representation of women on Athenian tragedy asserts, contra Cantarella, that "it is likely (although the evidence is not conclusive) that it was performed solely for men as well", though cites no sources for this assertion). My next step is to dig up Podlecki, and then I'll probably have a look at google scholar to see if I can find anything more recent... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 23:26, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In your shoes, I would write to a few classicists to request an up-to-date reading list. SarahSV (talk) 00:00, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The writing needs some work throughout. For example (these are only examples):
  • "The study of the lives of women in Classical Athens ... has become a significant part of ... Our knowledge of Athenian women's lives is significantly based ..."
  • "Athenian girls were ... taught the skills they needed to run a household by their mothers." (The household was not going to be run by their mothers.)
  • "Outside of the domestic sphere ..."
  • This is awkward: "Both Sarah Pomeroy and John Gould have observed that which of these categories of evidence are preferred varies between different scholars."
  • Not clear what this means: "Scholars of women in classical Athens have always been concerned with how they were treated by men."
  • Awkward: "This position was challenged by Gomme in 1925, which has influenced scholars arguing that women in classical Athens had high status despite their legal position ever since.[7] Pomeroy attributes this difference in viewpoints to the different types of evidence which were prioritised by different scholars ..."
  • Unclear: "We know that girls made offerings to Artemis on the eve of their marriage, during pregnancy, and at childbirth .." Are you making a point about child marriage, or did you mean to say that women made offerings during pregnancy and before or after childbirth? Also, not clear what "at childbirth" means.
    "at childbirth" is what the source says; I presume it means after the child was born, but I don't know. If I come across a source which clarifies this point I shall happily change it. As for "girls", I use the word because the source says parthenoi (i.e. "maidens" or "girls"); as they are clearly no longer "maidens" when they are pregnant, "girls" must be meant. I suppose it could be changed to "women", but "women" at least to me implies over-18s; calling fourteen-year-olds (the point that women married around 14 having already been made) seems potentially just as confusing. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:49, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's just part of an essay, but see WP:GIRLS. It's fine to call the 14-year-olds girls, but I assume women made these offerings too during pregnancy and after childbirth. I would say women and girls, though the context of that sentence makes it awkward. I would reword it if I were you, but I'd need time to think about how. SarahSV (talk) 22:18, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    "but I assume women made these offerings too during pregnancy and after childbirth". I don't think so, actually. The offerings in question are to Artemis, who is specifically associated with puberty and coming-of-age rituals. I shall try to find confirmation of this, though, and if adult women also made these offerings then I shall change it. (I would imagine, though don't know, that adult women's offerings during pregnancy would be to Hera, who tended to be associated with motherhood, or Demeter, who was associated with fertility)... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:48, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I've tracked down one of the two sources Garland cites for this claim, and it's not at all clear quite who was supposedly making these offerings. It mostly appears to be referring to girls soon after menarche, but there are occassional mentions of women dying in childbirth without clarifying whether these women were exclusively the same ones who had just gone through menarche, or more mature adult women also... I think I'm going to end up rewording this section... (and if it does turn out to be relevant to women of all ages, it'll probably have to be moved out of the section on childhood, at any rate) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 23:09, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Awkward: "Most of our knowledge of Athenian women's lives comes from literary evidence from tragedy, comedy, and oratory." Also, it's important to make the point right there that this material was written by men. Our knowledge of Athenian women comes for the most part (or entirely?) from men; in other words, we know very little about them. Does anything derive from women? The article doesn't say (that I can see). SarahSV (talk) 00:13, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Our classical evidence, afaik, comes entirely from men; there is earlier evidence written by women (mainly Sappho), and there are certainly women writers in Rome (and IIRC the Hellenistic period also), but everything from classical Athens comes (in the form we have it, at least), filtered through men's perspectives. It's true that the article should probably make this point clear, though. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:49, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It should be in the lead, right at the start. It's arguably the most important point in the whole article, like writing about the women of Afghanistan through the eyes of the Taliban. SarahSV (talk) 22:47, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the third paragraph of historiography, you explain that the study of women increased from the 1980s, but you don't say what the consequence of that was. There's no mention of feminist historiography. No mention of how women were represented almost entirely by men and the consequences of that. I would like to get a sense from the article of which feminist classicists are working in this area and how their research has changed the scholarship.
    I haven't put it in yet, but when I work out how to word it and what I am going to say, I do intend to put in a paragraph about how our sources are entirely by and for men. I want to get hold of Winkler (1989) again, because he is good on this; Gould (1980) also has a little to say on it.
    I shall also try to get something about the rise of gender history and feminist history and their effects on the subject, though I'm going to have to find more sources here. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 23:26, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relying on material from 1980 and 1989 is problematic. For the article to be promoted to FA, it has to reflect the latest scholarship. It also has to comply with UNDUE, rather than adding recent feminist scholarship as an afterthought. Have you considered contacting feminist classicists? Page duBois, for example, might be willing to supply a reading list. SarahSV (talk) 23:38, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, that's better. But it repeats the "running of the household by their mothers" problem. They were taught by their mothers; their households were not going to be run by their mothers. Also, I would stop after "military service" and start a new sentence; and no need for "both of" these activities.SarahSV (talk) 23:51, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of the 3775 words in the article, just over 300 words (around eight percent) are about prostitution. Does that proportion reflect the scholarship or does it violate WP:UNDUE? SarahSV (talk) 23:29, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    About 8% of Pomeroy (1994)'s three chapters on women in Athens are on prostitution; I think I'm probably within bounds. At any rate, I don't expect that that section is likely to increase substantially, while other bits certainly will (historiography), or are likely to (lead, discussion of theatre, per above, discussion of whether free athenian women counted as citizens if I can get my hands on Cynthia Patterson (1987), "Hai Attikai: The Other Athenians") Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 23:41, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's important that Wikipedia not simply reflect the old, sexist scholarship, especially when a lot of recent scholarship is missing. Just because one author devotes a lot of space to prostitution isn't a good reason for WP to do it. SarahSV (talk) 23:45, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wonder whether this would be helpful, including for its bibliography: Rebecca Futo Kennedy, Immigrant Women in Athens: Gender, Ethnicity, and Citizenship in the Classical City, Routledge, 2014. She talks about metic women having "fallen through the cracks" of earlier scholarship, and how they were assumed to have been prostitutes. SarahSV (talk) 01:00, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll need to have a look at it to be certain, but simply from the title I would assess its prospective helpfulness as really damn helpful. One of my concerns was that metic women aren't really addressed in the article but I hadn't managed to find any sources which did address them properly; that sounds like it fills the gap nicely. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:32, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Good, I hope it helps. I think this article is an excellent start, but it needs work for FAC. I suggest emailing classicists who specialize in this area, and perhaps looking through Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Members to find editors with a PhD in classics.
I would like to see a broad and deep understanding of the topic, and I want to learn about the scholarship from the article. That is currently missing. The article should make clear in the lead that our representations of women in Athens come from men. You mention it in historiography, but the writing isn't all that clear and the sources aren't recent. The sourcing throughout the article needs to be brought up to date. SarahSV (talk) 22:47, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • This paragraph isn't clear:
"Scholars of women in classical Athens have always been concerned with how they were treated by men.[2] Early scholars held that the place of Athenian women was "ignoble".[9] This position was challenged by Gomme in 1925, which has influenced scholars arguing that women in classical Athens had high status despite their legal position ever since.[10] Pomeroy attributes this difference in viewpoints to the different types of evidence which were prioritised by different scholars, with those arguing for the high status of Athenian women predominantly citing tragedy, while those arguing against it placing more emphasis on the evidence of oratory."[7]
I don't know what the first sentence means (and the scholars are not concerned with how the scholars were treated). The second and third sentences are completely unclear. What is meant by "early scholars"? "...women in classical Athens had high status despite their legal position ever since"?
Should be rewritten: "Pomeroy attributes this difference in viewpoints to the different types of evidence which were prioritised by different scholars ..." SarahSV (talk) 22:56, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fourth paragraph of the first section summarizes the 70s-90s. What has happened since then?
  • Infanticide (first para of childhood section) relies on sources from 1994 and 1980 and "though scholars since have largely dismissed this argument" on a source from 1985.
  • It would be good to include life expectancy and how many children women tended to have. SarahSV (talk) 23:34, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Johnbod

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  • I'd use your 2 remaining paras of lead, with quick summaries of what's below.
    I have now expanded the lead slightly, and used my third paragraph; hopefully it's doing a better job of summarising the article now... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:47, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The primary role of free women in Classical Athens was to marry and bear children.[13] This emphasis on marriage as a way to perpetuate the family through bearing legitimate children had changed from the Athens of the archaic period, when at least amongst the most powerful, marriages were as much about making beneficial connections as they were about perpetuating the family.[14]" - This smacked of WP:SYNTHESIS to me. Both motives are pretty strong in elites at almost any historical period much before the present, and it seems dubious to try to evaluate their relative strength. Does either reference specifically say there was a change in priorities?
    Osborne 1997 does specifically talk about a change of priorities, yes. He quotes Vernant 1980, who also argues this; I could try to dig it up to further support the point if necessary. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 11:44, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "If an epikleros was already married, she would be divorced so that she could marry her nearest relative.[27]" Presumably means if she became one, by a brother dying? Expand a bit to clarify.
    Presumably that would be the case, yes. I'd have to check the sources, but I can't think why else it might be... I'll have a look and try to clarify this. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 11:44, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I've now looked in Cohn-Haft, where the claim was sourced from; he doesn't comment on how this happened. He does, however, refer to Isaeus X, where he says a woman "had become an epikleros". Having looked at the hypothesis for Isaeus X, it appears that this happened because one of her brothers was adopted by someone else, and the other pre-deceased their father. I shall try to find a way to work this in while steering around WP:OR and WP:SYNTH (or find a different source which does discuss it, but unfortunately our article epikleros is silent on this point, so I can't just steal the sourcing from there... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:56, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seclusion - did women visit each other at home? Worth adding something on that side of things.
    Yes, they did. There is at least one speech (possibly by Demosthenes, but I'd have to check) where this is a relevant point, and I'm sure I've read at least one secondary source discussing this. I'll try to dig it up. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 11:44, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • You might summarize Representation of women in Athenian tragedy here.
    I'm not sure about this. I think a section on how women were treated in ancient tragedy is not really on-topic, which is how real women in classical Athens lived; on the other hand summarising it and saying/implying that that is how classical Athenian women did live is a) dangerously close to OR, and b) dubious and at best not scholarly consensus. Pomeroy and Gould at least have discussed the utility of tragedy as a source (and earlier A.W. Gomme argued for using tragedy as a source), so I could write a subsection on historiography, talking about the different kinds of sources we have (tragedy, comedy, oratory, vase paintings being the major ones). I'm sure I have some notes on such a subsection lying around somewhere, in fact, so I could try to work that up into something more substantial... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:56, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Generally seems pretty good, but I'm not checking ref formatting etc. Johnbod (talk) 11:29, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
PS, Nothing on dildos? Johnbod (talk) 11:47, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Might be more relevant to a hypothetical sexuality in ancient Greece article, though (we have sexuality in ancient Rome already...). If it becomes relevant, I would be happy to work it in. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:56, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Changed my comment, as SlimVirgin is right. My wording was really not helpful. Sorry. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the comments and changes. I've changed the Commons link to the more appropriate commons category "Ancient Athenian women" and the article could do with more images, especially a lead one - templates at the top are always horrible. Hegeso? Johnbod (talk) 17:38, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Hegeso looks promising: there's quite a good image of the stele here or one of a replica here. One advantage of that picture is that it's not another pot: currently the article has 6 pots versus one frieze and one stele. Another stele is a bit more balanced. Alternatively, could try an image of Athena (e.g. from a tetradrachm or one of Phidias' sculptures), but I'd think that a real woman rather than a goddess would be more appropriate; or a funerary sculpture, but I can't find one which is both as well-preserved and as identifiable as Hegeso. I'm going to put Hegeso in there for the time being at least. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:42, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Brigade Piron

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For what it's worth, I think this article is excellent and is obviously a good candidate for FA-standard. My comments here are pretty basic, but perhaps worth having a quite look at:

  • There is inconsistent italicising, both on Greek terminology ("menarche" is not currently italicised, "loutrophoroi" is) and in the titles of classical works ("Against Simon" for example)
    I think "menarche" is probably fine; though it derives from Greek, it is an English word and as such shouldn't be italicised. However, there are inconsistencies here among the unquestionably greek words ("medimnos" but "obol", "krater" but "loutrophoroi", "hetaira" but "epikleros"). I'm going to have to dig up the relevant MoS page and have a think about whether italicisation is correct here or not. As far as titles go, they look consistent to me at the moment, but I haven't checked thoroughly and it's possible that this has changed since you made the comment... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:51, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    You're correct that foreign terms that have entered English usage should not be italicised, but I'd question whether these terms have. Greek words like "drachma" may have entered English, but I'd question whether "hetaira" has.—Brigade Piron (talk) 08:31, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Currently there is still "talent[s]", "agora", "symposi[um|a]" unitalicised; everything else is italicised. If anything, I think this is now leaning on the over-italicised side of the spectrum: Chambers 2003 has "mina", "obol", "hetaira", "krater", "kylix", "kottabos", even "lekythos"! As per MOS:FOREIGN, arguably there is no need to italicise any of these terms. (Though, admittedly, Chambers is unusually good on obscure/technical/foreign terms: as our article notes, "It contains many more dialectal, archaic, unconventional and eccentric words than its rivals"). Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 09:28, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The citation "Hederson 1991, p. 140" is currently broken. Also, it is perhaps worth considering whether "Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, 13.25" actually needs to be cited considering it duplicates the perfectly good secondary text already cited.
    Someone's fixed the typo in "Hederson" ("Henderson", obviously!) since you pointed this out. I've cut the ref for Athenaeus; I suspect in an earlier version of the article it had more relevance than it does now... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:51, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • My third point is a bit more fundamental but also rather subjective - I think the article could do with much more illustration. We have a huge repository of Greek images on Commons (of course!) but also it might be worth considering whether useful quotes from primary sources can be added at the side in Template:Quote box which can be really effective if used well. I've used this elsewhere (have a look here for example) and have found it to be a good way of putting valuable primary material back into an article without falling foul of WP:OR. This is just a suggestion of course!
    I'll have a think about what quotes can be used. There's the obvious (in)famous one from [Demosthenes] Against Neaira, on wives, concubines, and prostitutes; I'm sure I could come up with a few other relevant ones... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:51, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Again, congratulations on taking the article so far! Best, —Brigade Piron (talk) 11:55, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Iazyges

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I think that perhaps a table should be made for the inherited citizenship based upon the period, such as how during the periclean period a citizen father could have a citizen son with a non citizen mother. and perhaps a table should be made based upon this, such as the 4 possibilities of parents: both citizens, both non citizens, mother is a citizen and father isn't, and father is a citizen but the mother isn't, perhaps having this as a x axis (top or bottom) and having a left sided Y axis of time periods in which there were changes. However overall I support the FA status being conferred upon this article. Iazyges (talk) 20:34, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Query: @Caeciliusinhorto: G'day, this review seems to have come to a natural conclusion as there haven't been any edits since July 2016, do you wish for me to close it and archive it? The bot that removes it from the PR page appears to be down, but I believe I can manually complete the bot steps. Please let me know your intentions. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:00, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@AustralianRupert: I didn't even realise that this was still open! Feel free to archive it; I doubt anyone who would be interested in reviewing it is going to come across it for the first time now... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:23, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, archived now. Thanks for your efforts with the article. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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