Women in Ancient Greece and Rome were respected individuals, and at times valued for their intelligence.

The God of Wisdom was a woman, and was highly respected by both Romans and the Greeks. For this time period, having a whole country have this mind set, that a woman could be wise and be worthy of respect. The Greeks were great in treating Athena with respect. First off, during war time Athena was one of the first gods that the greeks prayed to. They asked her for her wisdom, and that she may guide them to victory. The Greeks also based how their religious gathering in heaven accordingly to these very feminist ideals. In ancient stories about the gods meeting in Olympus, Athena’s ideas were always taken into account, and she was taken very seriously. One great example is in Homers second epic poem, The Odyssey, the beginning of which had a scene depicting Athena ordering Zeus to save Odysseus. The Roman people were also very respectful to the god Athena, or as they called her Minerva. One of the biggest things that stands out is that Minerva is a virgin. This is very profound, considering that most women were supposed to be submissive to a man and marry. Minerva was to powerful and wise to be defiled in a sexual manner, which is why she was never depicted in such a grotesque way. One other important aspect that the Romans gave to Minerva is she has an owl as her animal form. Owls are considered wise and powerful creatures, with no predators. Her having such an amazing animal to represent her is very forward thinking for ancient Rome. With all of the ways that the Romans and Greeks showed Athena respect, it is surprising that their was still sexism in these cultures. 
For ancient times, men had a very forward thinking image of women. Rome was the better of the two with this mindset. In Rome women had a lot of freedom, but also were brainwashed by men to be told what to think. Women were allowed to work, so they could make goods, provide insight, and make advancements in culture. This is very awe inspiring, considering that women still had trouble getting real jobs only 100 years ago. Although the women were allowed to work, they were still closely watched by an guardian. They weren’t allowed to leave the house on their own, married or not, they couldn’t make contact with anyone male who wasn’t family or a close friend. This was mostly because the Romans didn’t think they could trust women to not either keep their virginity or to not commit adultery. Greece was not very good with how the men saw and treated women. In Greece, women were allowed to do close to nothing on their own. Greek men did see women as worthy enough to be guardians of the castle, as opposed to in other cultures women could not be trusted to do anything. Except for women being allowed to guard the land, they had close to no