introduction:

In the past, the position of young women in Europe was often different from that of their male peers.

In this section, you will learn about three of them:

Heloisa, the gifted student who fell in love with her teacher, Abaelard;

Medeia, the young mother, the stranger, the betrayed wife;

Cleopatra, the ambitious young princess, soon queen of Egypt and lover of two powerful Roman generals.

What do they have in common? What were their aims, dreams and fears? And - last but not least - why did men choose to write about them; is there a "male" and a "female" way to deal with a protagonist of a story?

And what about our time? Did we reach full equality between men and women?

Well, before we discuss that, let's start with a little quiz:

(Click here to use the full screen version)

(You can use the little (i)-icon on each answer in order to get some more information.)

After the quiz, please, go to the discussion forum and tell us which information given in the quiz was most strange or unexpected to you.

And for deepening this subject with a Latin text in a European context, here are the materials for the Webquest. Let's go!