Talk:Representation of women in Athenian tragedy

Women's presence or lack thereof in Athenian drama
The article currently asserts that "it is likely (although the evidence is not conclusive) that it was performed solely for men as well". This is, as far as I know, not at all universally agreed on by scholars. To quote myself here, some of the recent (the last 30 years) scholarly input on the question of whether women were present in the theatre includes:

"There's Goldhill (1994),[...] which IIRC comes down slightly more decisively than Goldhill (1997) against the view that women were able to attend, and Podlecki (1990), which I haven't tracked down, but Goldhill says along with Henderson "forms the fullest defence of the presence of women". Cantarella (2005) says that "recent scholarship tends to believe" that women did attend the theatre, but most unhelpfully doesn't actually cite any scholars in support of this; meanwhile Davidson 2005 says that recent scholarship is inconclusive and that he isn't going to get involved in the debate, but cites Goldhill and Henderson. Finally Katz (1998) says that the evidence is inconclusive, likely to remain that way, and cites (once again!) Henderson and Goldhill."

(Goldhill 1997, to which I refer, doesn't believe that Henderson's argument is convincing but doesn't come down strongly for the opposing view either).

I think this really needs a citation for the claim that the most likely answer is that women didn't attend the theatre; of the sources I know, the only one to address the scholarly consensus is also the most recent, and claims that most scholars believe precisely the opposite. It is, however, ten years out of date, so it's entirely possible that consensus has changed in that time. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 23:33, 29 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I feel the opening claims of this article ("was performed exclusively by men", "is likely [...] that it was performed solely for men") do not accurately reflect current scholarship, and make a disputed matter with little direct evidence seem like established and agreed fact. I would suggest that we find a wording that better reflects what is known and what is speculation/assumption. mooncow 17:04, 17 December 2020 (UTC)