Women and the Olympics
In the modern day Olympics, there is equality between men and women and societies may find it difficult to understand a time when women had anything less than equal rights to men. Women now have their own sporting teams and can make a fairly successful career as an athlete. However, this equality was not the case for the women who lived ancient Greece.
Women were not permitted to participate in the Olympic games or even watch any of the events. They were not permitted on the sacred Olympic grounds, if they broke any of these rules they would be severely punished. If a woman did break these rules, the men at the Olympics would escort her to a nearby cliff and throw her off of it. This was a publicly displayed death sentence. This extremely violent behaviour and mistreatment of women is just another example of how the ancient Olympic games were a public display of violence.
Women were not permitted to participate in the Olympic games or even watch any of the events. They were not permitted on the sacred Olympic grounds, if they broke any of these rules they would be severely punished. If a woman did break these rules, the men at the Olympics would escort her to a nearby cliff and throw her off of it. This was a publicly displayed death sentence. This extremely violent behaviour and mistreatment of women is just another example of how the ancient Olympic games were a public display of violence.