The Western society often castigates the Classical Greek society for having separate spaces for men and women. They portray it as a society oppressive to women because women and men do not mix with each other and lead separate lives. And as they claim, "women are often combined to their homes, and confined to bearing and bringing up children."

But as an scholar herself claimed in a discovery channel programme, the Greek women did not see themselves as oppressed. Actually, this is the aggressive Western society imposing its values on an ancient society and judging it accordingly and inventing oppression where none existed.

Actually, apart from the fact that for a majority of women bringing up and raising young ones is the most important and fulfilling thing for their lives -- whether in nature or in civilisation, the Greek society had a lot of real freedom for them. In fact, Queer women (i.e. masculinised women, not women who liked women) also had a respectable place in the society. There were women armies and women gladiators. Women had a lot of REAL choice, unlike the Western societies of today. It just so happened that most women wanted to bring up children and build homes. They had no desires to be the "same as men" as the heterosexual society forces them to be, nor to do politics or fight in armies.

And, the few heterosexual (i.e., what the west would today describe as 'heterosexual') women as well as men were free to lead their lifestyles too -- as is clear from the fact that while most men stuck with each other, including romantically, a very small percentage of men actually shunned the male only groups and lived in heterosexual spaces, which were more like harems and had a gala time.