Gendered spaces in Ancient Greece Classical Period

Gender is instituted through performances and acts, as "assigned sex", which others determine in the mother womb, is socialized. The subject participates in acts that are in accordance with gender roles which is culturally shaped by the power relations. Gender identities are constituted through accumulations of such practices, according to which the subject intentionally or unintentionally acts as it complies to the role the subject is assumed. These voluntary or involuntary acts that are experienced in daily life, habitus, shape the space as well. Dichotomies such as masculine/feminine, front/behind, solid/flimsy, public/private are established with habitus, which configures humans' space by devising the hegemonic domination. Literary and philosophical texts, which are accessible from the Ancient Greece Classical Period, the abundance of historiography, along with the art/art and craft works, help to trace how gender had shaped space in Ancient Greece. It is known that those who participate in philosophical debates, makers of vases, on which habitus is represented, and those who purchased them, were male, and these objects were presented for the male gaze or appreciation. What constitutes the natural environment such as rivers, seas, fields, and mountains were gendered by establishing the masculine/feminine dichotomy, and the ones in motion were referred as masculine while stationary ones were referred as feminine. In the house, the oikos, which was a human environment, andron, which the place for festivity where the men performed their habitus, was masculine, gynaikeion, which was the place for women to execute practices such as weaving, spinning, ornamenting, were portrayed as feminine just like a harem would be. Stoas and agoras where commercial activities, conversation, philosophical debates were performed in public as male socialization excluded or concealed identities and had been portrayed as masculine spaces where male habitus was performed. Palaistra, where wrestling took place, and gymnasion, where physical education was realized, were perceived as masculine spaces designated for men only, apart from some exceptional regions present in the Ancient Greece geography, in which habitus regarding teacher and learner relationship were performed. Fountains, on the other hand, were depicted as the sole public space where we can trace the women's publicness. Distribution of labor based on gender in artisanship, emphasizes fringes of space. In bronze and clay workshops, it is observed that men's power was used and women found subsidiary roles; places where raw material was extracted and workshops, where sintering, molding tasks were handled, were portrayed as masculine spaces on various vases and pots. In contrast to this, places where spun yarn, weaving tasks were undertaken, were depicted as feminine spaces completely surrounded with woman habitus. Brothels represented the feminine space of the artisanship for dressing up, epilation and scenting, which served to what was hegemonic. Festivals and religious rituals allowed spatiality to women, who could not leave the house during the day, to socialize and interact. Women had put together ceremonies where they rendered themselves as citizens and ameliorated themselves, which, in return, turned pits and roofs into feminine spaces. Looking at gender in the heavens, which is the imagined space, in Ancient Greece mythology, theos had perceived spirituality in equilibrium and distributed the power between the gods and the goddesses in balance. Having said that, a division of labor based on gender between the gods and goddesses existed, and oceans, thunder, and land were gendered. In the subterrestrial domain, the imaginary space where monsters were present, the discourse on maliciousness and cursedness attributed to the womanhood contributed to the establishment of the domination of what was hegemonic.