Art by Emma Tusuzian

Over time, society has developed a negative depiction of leaders and people in power, especially women. This illustration is evident in society in the past, today and in literature. Homer’s The Odyssey, a story about the king Odysseus and his painfully long journey home from a decade long war, presents an abundance of women of whom are all portrayed in a similar wicked manner. Women are consistently portrayed as evil because it silences their voice and diminishes their power. If a powerful woman is seen as unruly, hateful and seductive, people are less likely to accept and follow their authority. The diminution of women’s power is a scheme meant to keep an elitist sect of society empowered and to quell any discrepancies in the social norms of those in authoritative or influential positions. 

          When powerful women take the blame or are forced into the position of an antagonist it is easy to disregard the entirety of their substance and rather focus on the enhanced display of their not necessarily perfect action and ignore the crude actions done upon them. The disregard of the actions of others allows for those people to maintain and consolidate their power while the power of women dissipates. In The Odyssey, Odysseus and his ill-fated crew land upon the island of the sorceress Circe. Some of Odysseus’ men seek out the land and find Circe's home. There they indulge themselves with her extravagant hospitality. Circe had poisoned the food and turned the men into pigs. One of the men, Eurylochus, had stayed behind and witnessed the others’ doom and returned to the ship. Odysseus then decides to go back to Circe and is confronted by the messenger god Hermes. Hermes gives him a drug to negate the effects of Circe’s bewitchments. Odysseus has his encounter with Circe where he unsheathes his sword and she then attempts to seduce him. Once Odysseus puts his weapon away Circe continues and Odysseus says, “So she enticed/ But I fought back, still wary. ‘Circe, Circe,/ How dare you tell me to treat you with any warmth?/ You who turned my men to swine in your own house and now/ you hold me here as well—teeming with treachery./ You lure me to your room to mount your bed,/ So once I lie there naked/ you’ll unman me, strip away my courage!/ Mount your bed? Not for all this world. Not/ until you consent to swear, goddess, a binding oath/ you’ll never plot some new intrigue to harm me!”’ (pg. 241 l. 372-382) The fact that Odysseus uses accusatory language such as “You who turned my men to swine” and “You lure me to your room to mount your bed” illustrates how Odysseus’ vilification and emphasis of Circe’s actions cause the reader to only view one side of her powerful and complex character. Her depreciation causes the visibly heinous actions of Odysseus to seem less significant when compared to hers. For example, Odysseus’ choice to sleep with Circe and cheat on his wife Penelope seems as if it is Circe’s fault for provoking or seducing him when in actuality he had no obligation or necessity to do so. In parallel, the historically prominent female leader and queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, was villainized by many people of her time. According to a Smithsonian article titled "Rehabilitating Cleopatra," “She nonetheless survives as a wanton temptress, not Cleopatra the first time a genuinely powerful woman has been transmuted into a shamelessly seductive one. She elicited scorn and envy in equal and equally distorting measure; her story is constructed as much of male fear as of fantasy. Her power was immediately misrepresented because—for one man's historical purposes—she needed to have reduced another to abject slavery.” (The Smithsonian) Similar to the Odyssey’s Circe, Cleopatra was depicted as lustrous and unruly which in turn made others less lenient or accepting of a female leader. The distortion of her portrayal can be attributed to the likes of opposed or fearing men: “Her power was immediately misrepresented because—for one man’s historical purposes—she needed to have reduced another to abject slavery.” It is apparent that the depiction of powerful women such as Cleopatra as reckless and seductive is a ploy to keep specific others in the spotlight of important affairs and interactions.

          The discrediting and marginalization of powerful women is used to prevent the reformation of influential institutions and a disparity of the social norms of those in power. This disparity causes those women’s opposition to take the liberty to exploit or take advantage of the conceived difference. Penelope, the husband of Odysseus and queen of Ithaca in Homer’s The Odyssey, is forced to suffer through the relentless actions of suitors who desire to marry her because of Odysseus’ multi-decade long absence. The suitors eat her food and spoil themselves with her hospitality. Her depressed and inactive son Telemachus, was instilled with courage by the goddess Athena and had no intention or energy to deal with the array of 108 suitors. Penelope had been circumventing the suitor’s desire by making an empty promise which in turn gave her power in the form of delaying any action the suitors could make. After almost four years the suitors found out. The suitors, in a flurry of zeal and anger towards Penelope for her deception say, “For three years now, getting on four,/ she’s played it fast and loose with all our hearts,/ building each man’s hopes—/ dangling promise, dropping hints to each—/ but all the while with something else in mind.” (pg. 96 l. 96-100) The suitors go on to say to Telemachus, “Now Telemachus, here is how the suitors answer you—/ you burn your mind, you and all our people:/ send your mother back! Direct her to marry/ whomever her father pics, whoever pleases her/ So long as she persists in tormenting us,” (pg. 97 l. 123-128) The fact that the suitors used Penelope’s deceit to discredit and dismantle the authority and control she had while weaving her lie demonstrates how the suitors are not only angry that they had been deceived by her but also because she is a woman. She actively had power over them by way of her lie and thus was disrupting the precedent of people in influential positions. By being a woman who has had power over them for a great deal of time she is challenging the social norms of people in powerful positions, especially for a time where women were vastly more oppressed and had more specific expectations than in modern times. In today’s politics Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Also referred to as AOC), a young female politician who has taken a large presence on the internet and has become the youngest congresswoman in American history, is further a powerful woman who has a fervent opposition. She is constantly bombarded with irrational criticism and insults from her opposition and news sources such as Fox News. In a Fox News article titled "Ocasio-Cortez and top aide should be investigated for possible campaign finance violations criticizing her credibility and  integrity during her campaign," the author states, ‘The accusations against Ocasio-Cortez are ironic because she has criticized the use of untraceable money in political campaigns and portrayed herself as a champion of campaign finance reform. Her Twitter biography says she is “100% people funded, no corporate PAC $.”’ (Fox News) Fox News’ opinions on AOC deliberately target her for taking super PAC $, something that countless other politicians do. By that token, they should be writing about an amass of political figures. It is obvious that they feel opposed by such a prominent female figure who has the captivation of the media, the public and the potential to gain even more power and influence and want to find every excuse to keep her and many people like her out of the dominant culture of which is ever so prominent in American politics and affairs. An article detailing the massive online presence of AOC states, “She may have far fewer followers than Trump (58.2 million), but if you look at her interaction rate, which averages out overall interactions per tweet against the account’s number of followers, it’s 2.8% for the last three months. That may not sound like much, but to put it in perspective, Donald Trump’s is 0.2%. Barack Obama’s is 0.4%. Hillary Clinton’s is 0.2%. Bernie Sanders’ is 0.09%.” (The Guardian) From the statistics, it is clear that the young congresswoman has both a political and online power of which is not to be easily dismantled. One can see that AOC, similar to many other women, has an opposition which intends to demean her and stop her active disruption of the social norms for powerful people. 

          Ultimately, the vilification of powerful women is a developed system meant to bring them down to the level of their opposition so those people can walk upon them and is also used to maintain a standard of exclusivity in powerful positions. The significance is acknowledging the discrepancies and marginalization of women present in society and The Odyssey is that by understanding its manifestation we can diminish its occurrence and bring many to the light. Although the views of many will not change society, culture and politics need to see a change in their dominantly white male face, and further understanding why and how powerful women are subjected to these criticisms will allow for more discussion and active reformation for women at all levels of power.