Penelope, for example, is helpless to protect her estate from the guys who came over and ate up her goods every day, and again, even the powerful women in the Oddyssey are all Goddesses, firmly being controlled by the male Gods, and who pay heavy prices when trying to work around them.
Even Helen is mostly passive, the victim of a kidnapping, unable really to do much - she's a very ambivalent figure, more done to than doing.
Clytemnestra steps out of the mold with her murder of Agamemnon and is constantly compared to Penelope. And even Clytemnestra, in taking this action, can't rule in her own right...daughter of a king even so, but has to have Agamemnon's cousin to fulfil the kingly duties.
Cassandra, in many ways a tragic figure, tries to make her own way, but gets Apollo mad at her, and no one credits her for the truth she tells them, and still goes down to death at the hand of another woman because she refused to be what Apollo wanted her to be.
Circe is a witch, because she rules her domain and does so through magic, because otherwise, she has no power.
It is ridiculous for much later generations to speculate about who wrote ancient great works, using the perspective of their own times and completely disregarding the culture/manners of the time such works were written in.