The Greek Gods ES

In Hippolytus, there is much talk of women, their troubles, their faults, and their roles. The title character reveals himself to be a raging misogynist, yet contradicts himself in his admiration of Artemis. On the one hand, Hippolytus praises Artemis, calling her the “most beautiful of all maidens” (lines 64-65), but on the other hand, when he is enraged at his stepmother Phaedra, makes broad statements about women as a species, coining the phrase “this blight on human existence: women” (lines 617-618) and saying “May I never have a woman in my house who thinks more deeply than a woman should,” (lines 640-643). But at the same time, this misogyny reveals a characteristic of Hippolytus’ attraction to Artemis. Like Artemis, Hippolytus is abstinent, which we know from the beginning of the play is not only abnormal but hated by Aphrodite, so much so that she forces Phaedra to lust after Hippolytus, which is the ultimate premise of him revealing such misogyny. The whole situation also brings up a thought about Artemis; perhaps Artemis herself identifies first and foremost as a huntress, and then (or perhaps not at all) as a woman. Artemis is devoted to breaking the expectations on women at the time and will forever remain chaste and thoroughly opposed to sex, so much so that in Metamorphoses, we see her cast out a follower who was raped. She makes no exception when it comes to sex and perhaps this is why she and Hippolytus get along.  Perhaps there is some sort of misogyny in Artemis, not in the cultural sense of the word, but in its literal meaning coming from the Greek "hatred of woman" as we can see through her resistance to anything characteristic to women- marriage, sex, and fragility.