Magna Graecia was a great place to be a woman

So a trope’s going around that “misogyny is to Hellenismos what racism is to Heathenry” which I can only assume is being perpetuated by people who are ignorant of history. Women were treated pretty well in Makedonia and Hellenistic Egypt, as I’ve argued here, and even better in Southern Italy as I demonstrate in my piece Hate the Athenians, not the Greeks. But then again, it’s not like the ancient Germanic peoples possessed a strong race consciousness or sense of xenophobia (they even embraced Dionysos-worship, as all sensible nations do) so perhaps this was an unintentionally apt analogy. Racism has no more to do with Heathenry than misogyny has to do with Hellenismos – unless you’re drawing entirely upon Attica in your reconstructionism, in which case you can force your woman to wear a veil, beat her if she tries to walk around the city unchaperoned like a common whore (assuming you’re upper-class: poor Athenian women had to go out and work, regardless – nothing makes people equal like poverty) and divorce her without returning her dowry if she doesn’t provide you with a male heir. Thank the gods my tradition is Italiote!