Spartan Women

             Most of the information we have today about the women of ancient Greece was wrote by well educated, higher class men that were considered the experts of the time but naturally did not know what it was like to live as a woman. These men depicted the women as emotional, less rational, impulsive, and weaker than men, lacking knowledge of the world and dependent solely on them. But that idea did not hold true for the Greece city/state of Sparta.
             The freedom and greater respect for Spartan women began at birth with the fact that there were more girls than boys, because they were not victims of the state program of infanticide as was practiced in Athens. There were laws setup that required female infants and children to be given the same care and food as their brothers in contrast to other Greek cities where girls were frequently given less and lower quality food. The reason for this was because it was thought that if the girls had more food then their bodies would be better prepared for producing a healthy child for the Spartan society.
             These women unlike the women of Athens were expected to be able to protect themselves as well as learn reading and writing alongside the boys. In Athens, the education of a girl involved spinning, weaving, and other domestic arts, for a Spartan woman such tasks were relegated to helots. A girls education was equally as hard and brutal as the men's, and included many athletic events such as staged battles, foot races, discus, and javelin throw. Even their tunics were worn in such a way as to give them a little more freedom of movement when involved in athletic activities and it also gave them the opportunity to reveal a little leg and thigh if they so desired. It is believed that they might have competed in the nude before a mixed audience in many athletic competitions. Incidentally a Spartan woman, Cynisca, became the first woman to ever have an Olympic vi
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