This paper is concerned with some of the ‘dark’ aspects of the lives of Athenian women of the Archaic and Classical periods. Through a review of images of women with light in hand and of female activities that were illuminated by lamps and torches, the amount and significance of women's activities which required lighting devices may be traced. These may have taken place in private, inside the oikos – for which our knowledge is limited – or outside the oikos, where women enjoyed a restricted participation in certain socio-religious activities. The kind of females under discussion range from ‘respectable’ wives and daughters of Athenian citizens to hetairai, the professional female entertainers. On the basis of literary and iconographical evidence, I shall seek to identify the nature and timing of those female activities, and to assess whether the type of lighting device chosen for a particular action may possibly reveal other aspects of the life of Athenian women, notably age or social status.