Gender Issues in Antigone One of the most devastating issues for the classical Greeks was the question of women. In classical Greece, women were not citizens, owned no property, and were not even allowed to leave the house unless supervised. Their status differed from that of the slaves of Greece only in name. But that in itself was not a problem: the problem was that the Greeks knew, in their hearts, that it was wrong. Indeed, their playwrights continually harangued them from the stage of Athens. All the great Greek playwrights – Sophocles, Euripedes, Aristophenes – dealt with the question of women. All argued, in their own way, that Greek women were nowhere near as incapable and weak as the culture believed. All created strong, intelligent female characters. But in “Antigone,” the discussion reaches its climax. Antigone herself, as she stands on the Greek stage, represents the highest ideals of human life: courage and resp! ect for the gods. A woman, she is no less the example of her society. But how can we know this? Is the author letting the audience know that it is Antigone herself, and not Creon, “the noble-eyed emperor” (453), who is to be believed? It is almost inconceivable that the audience would be forced to ignore Creon's seemingly skillful arguments, for he seems to represent everything the Athenian should strive for. He defends obedience to the State. Surely it is his voice that we must obey. Sophocles lets us know where the truth lies, and he does so, surprisingly, in part through his characterization of Creon. Although Creon appears to be saying intelligent things, there are indications that he should not be trusted. One would be his discussion about incest with Ismene. Torn between her duty to God and her duty to the State, Ismene, in the third act, ran to Creon, planning to tell him of Antigone's actions in the cemetery: "O, not for me the dusty hair of youth , / But let's go now. the palace goes" (465), she cries. But Creon, ignoring the supposedly important information she has to say (he has after all emptied the Theban coffers, spending money in his network of advanced espionage in search of the miscreant), instead asks her to come home with him “How long, oh princess, oh! How long!'" he declares, suggesting a time for their next meeting: "At noon, or/Not at six o'clock. It is to such a passage that the doomed line of Oedipus has reached.