On International Women’s Day this week, PHD student Alex Meghji came to speak to Sixth Form Classicists about the generally problematic presentation of women in Classical Literature, and how most fit into character tropes such as: “the man-hater”, “the crazy one”, “the good girl”, “the wicked one”, “the one who asked for it”.
Alex went on to explain that she believes many of these tropes are still used today to describe and categorise women.
Based on this, she explained that there have been calls for Classics and classical literature to be banned; however, we were in general agreement that the current trend of giving women in Classical Literature a voice, such as Madeleine Miller does, was a better way forward.
Hanna Taylor & Annabelle Harper, Lower Sixth
