Athens

Hello, I am newly getting into Greek Mythology and overall Ancient Greek history. I have a question about Athens. From what I understand, within the mythology, Athens is named after Athena. Her and Poseidon both presented their gifts to the city (olive tree and a rivulet?) and Athena’s was chosen. If Athena, a goddess, was revered as the deity of the city, why was Athens’ view of women so low? At first I thought I was projecting the current ideas of sex and gender onto the ancient world, which is not fair. I feel like I am probably still doing that a bit but when you look at Sparta, woman were, on average, given more power and agency when it comes to some things like owning/inheriting property. Moreover, when you look at prominent philosophers of the time, ones from Athens (e.g., Aristotle and Plato) had lower perception of women, or at least wanted women excluded from philosophy, compared to ones from other places (e.g., Epicureans from Samos).

Going back to the mythology, St. Augustine in The City of God says that Athenian women, who were the majority, voted for Athena while the men voted for Poseidon. Poseidon flooded Athens out of anger and women were punished for voting for Athena. Though this provides the more mythical reason for it, I was wondering if anyone has any historical insight as to why a city that has a goddess as its deity/symbol would have a lower opinion of women compared to other city states?

(This is probably asked a lot by a lot of newbies, so if that is the case, I am sorry! Also, I am esl and am reading the sources not in English so some things might not have the best translation.)