I’m interested in learning the context here.
Because modernity also hates women and I guess I’m ignorant but… weren’t there options for women then…? Like midwife/doula-type things, herbalist/witch, spinster/seamstress-clothier?
Potentially more than they could have in modern history?
Modern media heavily whitewashes ancient Greece. Women were property, they held virtually no political rights of any kind.
Roman women were marginally better off, but by modern standards they were still in the dumpster.
Ancient Greece was also heavily into boy rape. It was really, really bad.
Remember that “ancient Greece” is our term for an area, rather than a singular nation / empire like Rome.
The area of Greece mainly had Athens and Sparta, and Athens is probably who you’re referring to.
But Spartan women weren’t that bad off, compared to other places in antiquity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_Sparta
Spartan women were famous in ancient Greece for seemingly having more freedom than women elsewhere in the Greek world. To contemporaries outside of Sparta, Spartan women had a reputation for promiscuity and controlling their husbands. Spartan women could legally own and inherit property, and they were usually better educated than their Athenian counterparts.
But Spartan women weren’t that bad off, compared to other places in antiquity
We also white wash Spartan history pretty dramatically. Yes, Spartan women who were citizens were better off than their Athenian counterparts. However, that’s not saying much when you consider spartan citizens were a fraction of the population of Sparta.
The vast majority of women in Sparta were helots, and were subject to chattel slavery. I don’t think you can claim that Spartans cared about gender equality when they had an entire social class made up of the bastards produced by raping their slaves.