Priestesses and the Intersection of Gender, Religion, and Power in Classical Athens

Athenian women were excluded from nearly all areas of public life with significant cultural value, including politics, law, commerce, and art, with one notable exception: the realm of religion. Through the office of priestesshood, women were afforded unparalleled visibility and social status. This paper explores the evidentiary paradox of the study of women in classical Athens, the unique role that Athenian women and priestesses played in religious life, and how male anxieties about the status of priestesses were expressed in literature, specifically illustrated through Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. Classical Athenian priestesses wielded power in society both despite their gender and because of it, demonstrating a state of cognitive dissonance regarding the status of women in society that echoes forward to the modern era