Ovid’s Ars Amatoria through the Lens of Modern Psychology: The Static Culture of Sexually Objectifying Women

An examination of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, an Ancient Roman elegy, can help a modern audience better understand how sexual objectification of women occurs today. Ovid promulgated problematic gender roles and ideals, which created a systemic culture of objectification of women. Using modern sexual objectification theory and psychological research, we can gain insight into the often-forgotten experience ancient Roman women had. Although written in a vastly different culture and society than today, Ars Amatoria is still relevant to a modern audience and illustrates how ideas put forth by Ovid about gender are not so distant from modern ones.