Gender bias and female invisibility at an Archaeological museum shop

Nearly one year ago, my mum and I visited our local Archaeological Museum, which had recently been restored. At the end of the visit, we went to the shop to browse and found a couple of items that we ended up buying: A fabric bag with a print of the Greek huntress goddess Ártemis for me, and a beautiful statutette of the Greek warrior goddess Athena in her chariot that I got for my mum to celebrate her upcoming final Master's proyect presentation :). 

Unfortunately, both of the labels and/or description of these items suffered from gender bias and sexism by omission. They are yet another couple of examples of how so many women - be they mythological, historical or contemporary-, are made invisible in this society, and of how the gender bias mechanism can work in order to promote gender estereotypes and make women - especially empowered or unconventional figures  - literally non-existent:

This is the Ártemis fabric bag, plus a cardboard cut-out of the goddess holding it. Now, I don't know who is in charge of labelling the products in these kind of shops, but to anyone who knows just a bit of Classical mythology, a depiction of a woman with a bow is probably bound to be the goddess Ártemis, an athletic and warlike goddess who hunts and runs in the woods apart from the other deities (and bonus points if she wears a short tunic, has lunar symbology or a tiara on, or is accompanied by a dog or stag). However, this bag was labelled as 'Bolsa arquera' ("Archeress bag"). The figure on the bag is recognized as being female, which is something (I guess the breasts are too obviosuly visible, although that isn't always a sure way to recognize a female figure as female! I've seen figures who are pretty obviously female being labelled as men because it suited the status quo or because the labellers were being blinded by gender bias). She isn't, however, described as the 'Goddess Ártemis', she's just a random woman with a bow. Ignorance, laziness, or, more worryingly, an example of female characters and names being erased just because? I guess ignorance and laziness played a bigger part in this case, although I do think that female invisibility can often also play an important part, if only in a subconscious way.

The Athena statuette is a more worrying and blatant example of gender bias and female invisibility. Once again, to anyone who knows just a bit of Classical mythology, Athena, warrior goddess of wisdom and crafts, should be nearly automatically recognizable because she's just such an iconic image, nearly always represented in the same way, wearing a long tunic, carrying owl symbology and armed with helmet, spear and shield. However, this statuette, which is very much obviously Athena in a chariot, is labelled as being a freaking male warrior (the label originally read 'Guerrero (en) carro', or "Male warrior (on) chariot"). Not only isn't this figure recognized as being the goddess Athena, iconic as she is in her depictions - but she is labelled as being a man even though she is quite obviously a female (from the traditional female tunic to her face and hair). Why? Maybe because the labellers just saw that it was a figure carring weapons and automatically assumed that it had to be a man, because a woman being a warrior just isn't in the traditional gender roles agenda, so it isn't even a possibility? I find this example of gender bias worryingly blatant because there are people who continue assuming that warrior-women are unnatural and even non-existent "in real life", but they at least keep recognizing and accepting that there is a Greek goddess called Athena who's dressed as a warrior and has warlike attributes. It's such an iconic figure, most people have been taught to recognize and accept her, even though they may consider that she's just an exception among women (and yes, warrior-women are not the norm in a male-dominated world with gender roles, not at all, but that does not mean warrior-women did not and do not exist).

And there was an additional incoherence factor in this case, because when we purchased the figure, the item was described as 'chariot of Athena' in the receipt, but it was 'Male warrior (on) chariot' in the description's item, the one everyone could see. 

Fortunately, I went back to this shop this past May and found out that the label of Athena's figure has been changed since then, and now it reads 'Atenea (en) carro' ("Athena (on) chariot"). Given that both me and my mum complained about this issue when we first saw the misgendered and misnamed label, we think our complaint may have been effective and a factor that resulted in the label being correctly changed. If that is so, hey, feminist complaints may turn out to be effective sometimes after all :)!