Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Actual Amazons

In ancient and classical Greek mythology, there was a nation of all female warriors. Herodoctus wrote about them in his book and said that they were located in modern day Ukraine. Some contemporaries said that their tribe was in Libya. They even fought in the Trojan war alongside other warriors. Some of the common figures from the time are Penthilsilea and Hippolyta. These female warriors would not allow any male warriors to live within their lands, and they would visit the neighboring tribe once a year in order to beget children. If they had any males, they would be set free into the wilderness to fend for themselves. According to tradition, this was an actual tribe, and I thought I'd share this tidbit since we were discussing the Amazon Rainforest's namesake yesterday in class.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Just one thing...women rock. It also seems awesome to think that these women one day said "screw men" and kind of just walked away from a former tribe.

Unknown said...

Eh, I'd have to disagree with Breuna. I don't think that it's good for women to say "I hate men" or "screw men" and set baby boys out on their own to die. Society doesn't function with just men or just women. Society best functions when the two work together and use their differences to compromise and come up with better results.

Unknown said...

I do agree that it is better to work together, but there must have been some sort of oppression that these women faced in order to do such a thing. Something that men did to them made them start to hate men. Maybe it isn't the right choice to set boys out on their own, but to them they probably thought they were protecting themselves from some overbearing force.

Sri Korrapati said...

But Breuna, do you honestly think that these women's reaction was appropriate? They are now the oppressors of men, making them just as bad as the men that oppressed them in the first place. Men and women evolved to live side by side in societies with different roles. (The majority of) Early men were hunters and early women were gatherers. I suppose you could live a lifestyle with only veggies or a lifestyle with only meat nowadays, but back then I bet it was hard to survive with only one of the two. While Amazon women were pretty badass, that doesn't make them good people. Oppression towards people because of a defining factor is never okay, that's stereotyping. Although no society back then was perfect. Society can only be perfect if men and women are considered EQUAL!