For the most part women in the Odyssey are essentially one of three things: sexualized monsters, in the form of Circe, Calypso, the Sirens, and even Scylla; asexual helpers and servants, in the form of Athena and Eurycleia; and finally, seemingly helpless damsels, in the form of Penelope. To this one may add what is essentially the lowest of the low class within the poem, those women who are sexually liberated but who do not even have supernatural power to defend their desire for sexual autonomy, namely, Penelope's maids. Circe and Calypso both express sexual desire, but they are ultimately spared due to their status as goddesses, and thus they merely have to give up Odysseus. Penelope's maids have no such extra status, and thus in the hierarchy of power represent the lowest of the low, and receive punishment in return.

As a result, they are summarily executed for having...
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