Wikipedia:Peer review/Women in Classical Athens/archive1

Women in Classical Athens
I've (hopefully!) improved the article significantly since October. It's still got a way to go before it's up to the mark, though, I think, and I'd welcome some fresh eyes on it to see what needs doing. The sections on Childhood and Family Life are probably the best bits of the article at the moment; I think the section on Religion and the Lead are most in need of work still. I'd like to eventually get this up to at least GA status.

Thanks, Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:34, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Comments from Rathersilly
Hey, I don't edit Wikipedia much, but I happened across this and I think it would be interesting to at least mention the implications of Perikles' citizenship law of the mid 5th century BC. See 'Law, the Democratic citizen and the representation of women in classical Athens' by Osborne for more information. Essentially, Perikles' law changed the status of citizen-women to become 'gatekeepers' of citizenship so to speak by making having an Athenian mother a prerequisite for citizenship. This in turn had an effect on how women were valued in Athens which is reflected in grave stelae for example. There is a lot to be said on this subject, I am sure something about this could be fit into the article. Furthermore it should be noted that the 'separate spheres' idea is not entirely uncontested, I think Katz discusses this in 'Women and Democracy in Ancient Greece', and Vlassopoulos if I recall correctly mentions it in his 'free spaces' article, which I personally found very interesting. I might add some more suggestions later, I did some research into women in democratic Athens in the past, but I am busy now, so these are some ideas to work with for now.- Rathersilly (talk) 12:02, 26 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comments! I was just reading the Osborne article yesterday, actually, and wondering whether I should work it into the article somehow.  I haven't read Vlassopoulos or Katz, I don't think, so thanks for the pointers to them, too. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:50, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Ugog Nizdast

 * Main
 * nothing yet that I can spot stopping it for passing a GAN... Ugog Nizdast (talk) 19:27, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The lead needs to have another para, given this article's size. WP:LEADLENGTH Ideally each main section should be represented in it. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 12:13, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Minor
 * "...would have practiced infanticide, ", I'm curious as a layman reader..why? Do sources say why did they practise it, that too for both sexes?
 * Avoid WP:EGG-like links: for example: seven-> seven (Amphidromia); same for " those used to transport water used to bathe before the wedding day.", " closest male relative" " a lawsuit c" etc? there may be more
 * "doll and with knucklebones" or "doll and knucklebones" or "doll with knucklebones"?
 * "We know more about the role...", sorry, we never use "we" in the 'pedia or rarely use it. Try to reword the statement. wow, didn't know this was another exception WP:FIRSTPERSON, was aware of only the scientific one.
 * Your references can be changed to shortcitations, for ease in V. I'm seeing a lot of same ref, different page nos. For help, start with WP:CITESHORT.
 * Ideally, WP:IMGLOC says we should place images left-right, across the article body and alternating. The image subject should "face" the text. Text sandwiched between images on both sides are discouraged. I'm seeing the section "Family life" header breaking, move that image up. Even in the "Prostitution" section, rearrange those.
 * Why not try putting attractive captions to draw readers to the relevant text? See WP:CAP points 3, 4, 5 under "Some criteria" for tips. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 19:27, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * " Athenian women stayed separate from unrelated men, and Athenian citizens subscribed to the idea that it was degrading for citizen-women to work  women both free and unfree are attested working in various capacities."? Ugog Nizdast (talk) 12:13, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Let me know if I should continue, Ugog Nizdast (talk) 19:27, 12 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback. Glad to hear you think it's GA-worthy, though I'll try to address a few of your concerns before I put it up there. Especially, thanks for pointing me to WP:EGG; I don't think I've read that page before.  I shall try to make some of the links clearer.
 * re infanticide: afaik, not specifically mentioned in ancient sources about Athens (though ancient sources about Sparta mention Spartan infanticide). Probably both male and female children killed, though girls killed more often because raising girls took wealth out of the family to her husband's family in the form of dowry (the evidence we have also suggests more boys than girls survived infancy, though there are other possible explanations, such as just having more record of men than women).  Too many sons would have split the family wealth significantly also, and so might also not have been desirable (though at least some sons were theoretically required to continue the family line, while the same wasn't true of daughters...)
 * re short citations: I could change this, but it would involve a lot of work for (what I see as) little reward.  If there's a good reason to me to go through and do so, I'd be happy to do the work, and I'd like to hear it; otherwise, WP:CITE says in the lead "If an article already has citations, preserve consistency by using that method or seek consensus on the talk page before changing it", and in any case recently featured articles (e.g. Palmyra) do not use short citations, so I don't see that it would even be necessary to introduce if/when this article gets up to FA standards.
 * Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:43, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Okay, see why that isn't mentioned here.
 * What you said applies to the entire citation style Wp:CITEVAR but WP:IBID shows three ways to clearing up multiple page-same source citations. It might not be an issue now but I think it may come in the way of FA.
 * Finished going through it and overall, it made an interesting read. I think it's GA-standards. If you want FA, I could be try again and dig up some more. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 12:13, 17 February 2016 (UTC)