Book Project: Ruled by Women: Gynocracy in Classical Greek Political Thought
In April of 2016, Stephen Marche, penning a piece for The Guardian, described the environment of a right-wing online community that called itself “The Red Pill” (TRP) which promised to reveal how things “really” work in our society. The truth that TRP, and communities like it, claimed to reveal is that “women run the world without taking responsibility for it, and that their male victims are not permitted to complain.” Where feminists see sexism, patriarchy, and misogyny, the men that frequent these online communities see a gynocracy. The claim that women might have undue influence over men, inverting and upending what has too often been considered as the most “natural” of hierarchies, viz. the authority of men over women, is far from new. In fact, claims of gyno-centrism are deeply reminiscent of ancient Greek figurations of gynocracy, of women’s potential or actual access to political power, in certain classical Greek texts and myths. What gives rise to such concerns? How might the political climate and rhetoric of a polity affect their popularity? What might these narratives tell us about how we think and theorize political power and rule, especially in democratic contexts like Western democracies and classical Athens? And how is women's control of a polity perceived to transform it?
My book project takes up these questions by turning to the classical Greek tradition of gynocracy, or rule by women. I contend that figurations of women’s rule express deep anxieties about the most radical and unruly aspects of democracy. I use the odd figure of women holding political power in the classical context to study how ancient democracy was defined both against and through gendered narratives. I argue that anxieties related to the possibility of women’s rule, which are fraught with concerns about the consequences of contentious or unruly politics, are at the heart of the most radical aspects of ancient conceptions of democracy. Additionally, this project reads for political community and solidarity created by women. That is, rather than focusing on narratives of individual women in power (i.e., queens), I focus on women’s collectivities, suggesting that depictions of women’s plurality such as those figured in gynocratic texts both offer an understanding of gender based on women’s relationships with each other, and cast such an understanding of gender as producing a different account of what it meant to be citizens committed to a political community. In figuring gynocracy through a set of political practices that were characteristic of famously contentious and unruly Athenian “radical” democracy (e.g. excessive freedom, public contestation, unruly political behavior, even revolution), Greek political commentators cast the latter as feminine, and hence dangerous, hysterical, and uncontrollable. Contemporary versions of the trope operate in similar ways: casting women as both conniving enough to control men and their politics from behind the scenes and too emotional to properly participate in politics in order to challenge and eliminate voices that do not fall under men's control.
My book project takes up these questions by turning to the classical Greek tradition of gynocracy, or rule by women. I contend that figurations of women’s rule express deep anxieties about the most radical and unruly aspects of democracy. I use the odd figure of women holding political power in the classical context to study how ancient democracy was defined both against and through gendered narratives. I argue that anxieties related to the possibility of women’s rule, which are fraught with concerns about the consequences of contentious or unruly politics, are at the heart of the most radical aspects of ancient conceptions of democracy. Additionally, this project reads for political community and solidarity created by women. That is, rather than focusing on narratives of individual women in power (i.e., queens), I focus on women’s collectivities, suggesting that depictions of women’s plurality such as those figured in gynocratic texts both offer an understanding of gender based on women’s relationships with each other, and cast such an understanding of gender as producing a different account of what it meant to be citizens committed to a political community. In figuring gynocracy through a set of political practices that were characteristic of famously contentious and unruly Athenian “radical” democracy (e.g. excessive freedom, public contestation, unruly political behavior, even revolution), Greek political commentators cast the latter as feminine, and hence dangerous, hysterical, and uncontrollable. Contemporary versions of the trope operate in similar ways: casting women as both conniving enough to control men and their politics from behind the scenes and too emotional to properly participate in politics in order to challenge and eliminate voices that do not fall under men's control.
Other Works in Progress
“Women in Corinth: Disappearing Motherhood in Euripides’ Medea” (Preparing)
“Who’s Afraid of Women’s Rule? Figures of Gynocracy as Conservative Backlash” (Preparing)
“Who’s Afraid of Women’s Rule? Figures of Gynocracy as Conservative Backlash” (Preparing)