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Gender roles over the course of history
Gender roles and its effect on society
Gender roles in society and culture
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This paper will discuss the well-published work of, Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975. Print. Sarah B. Pomeroy uses this book to educate others about the role women have played throughout ancient history. Pomeroy uses a timeline to go through each role, starting with mythological women, who were called Goddesses.
Mesopotamia is one of the earliest civilizations in the world; hence it is called the cradle of civilization. Located between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, Mesopotamia is the perfect word for this region since Mesopotamia also means the land between rivers. These two rivers created the Fertile Crescent which was surrounded by barren territories. People in this area gave up hunting and gathering and instead slowly shifted into agricultural means of getting food to help them survive. They started domesticating animals and planted their own crops.
During the Mesopotamia era (4,000 -2,350 B.C.E.), cities were built to help support the population, the inventions of everyday chores and issues (i.e. wheels, canals, pottery), and the rise of monarchy became the hierarchy and the most widespread form of government. Society was under a patriarchy – which the male population dominated political, social, and economic life.
From this quote, it may seem that women had no rights and were required to stay home, tend their husbands, and bear children in Ancient Greek times. However, it is also important to remember that “there were also categories of women which are less well-documented than others, such as professional women”
NABINA SHRESTHA HST 1001 PROFESSOR ELIZABETH WYKA 11/16/15 The Epic of Gilgamesh Introduction: According to the World History, Mesopotamia means "land that joins two rivers"; a home to the world's first complex civilization Sumer.
Women’s roles has changed dramatically throughout history. By looking at the lives of women, it would be possible to tell how the civilians at that specific period of time were living. In this paper, women’s lives in mainly three civilizations would be discussed, the Sparta, the Athens, and the Hellenistic era. In Sparta, women were needed to live at home, while their husbands remained in military barracks until the age thirty.
Modern historian, Ateneus, once wrote that Etruscan women “Lie on the kline not only with their husbands but also with strangers and have relations with anyone willing to do so” (Lobner n.d, 357)1. This is illustrated in Figure 1 where the women are shown seated next to men in the banquet. Etruscan women, whether married or unmarried are allowed to dine and socialize with men on any occasion. In other societies, the only women who are allowed to join men in banquets are the prostitutes, thus the negative interpretation over the freedom of the Etruscan woman in attending these festivities. The Etruscan women are described by other Greek societies as having no morals and women who enjoyed pleasure rather than being upright. This was observed by other societies who do not understand the right and privilege accorded to them by the society.
The style of living in the dynastic period may seem thoroughly impossible to imagine or relate to, yet surprisingly society in the Ancient World may not have been as abstract as believed. The book Daughters of Isis by Joyce Tyldesley paints a vivid image of the characteristics of life for women in Ancient Egypt; the book delves into the various roles women played in Ancient Egyption society to show how Ancient Egyption women were an anomaly in the Ancient World. The book covers in depth all aspects of life for women in Ancient Egypt: marriage, domestic work, beauty, and religion. I believe that Tyldesley’s book is a masterful compilation, equitably balanced between all the trivial and significant details that fashioned the lives of women in Ancient Egypt. Upon my first attempt of reading the book, I was immediately overwhelmed with the plethora of names of Egyptian Kings and jargon that filled the pages of the book, and at once knew that Tyldesley wrote the book in a didactic manner.
Hellenistic vs. Assyrian "Babe, go make me a sandwich. " Since the dawn of time, women have been considered inferior to men. Most societies throughout history viewed women as poisonous or unimportant compared to male counterparts. Women in Hellenistic Greece were treated with more respect than women in Assyrian societies because Greek men saw women as good and perfect, chaste and innocent with no possible way of "poisoning" a man.
When looking at the Mesopotamian Society, one can use many sources, yet a great representative of the society are the Laws of Hammurabi, which dictate the lifestyle of the people of the Mesopotamian Empire. In this society, a woman is regarded at the property of the man. Whether the woman is another man’s wife, or daughter. The woman’s husband’s occupation also dictated her lifestyle. A free man’s wife is treated differently from a civil servant’s wife.
In the story Gilgamesh by Stephen Mitchell, I have learned that women was recognize as powerful objects. The story tells me in ancient Mesopotamia that men based their perspective on women for what we have and not our mind set. The women in the story are mention when you first open the books and is continue throughout the entire story line. The first woman was a prostitute name Shamhat, who was sent on a mission to change the life of a beast named Enkidu. In the story, Gilgamesh called Shamshat “one of the priestesses who give their bodies to any man, in honor of the goddess” (p.12).
Even though women had more independence in Egypt compared to other societies, equality among the sexes was not apparent. There were certain roles in societies that were strictly male or female, causing a limited choice on careers and within the job had certain tasks relating the gender. For example, it was obtainable for both men and women to be servants but within that, they acquired different responsibilities. Men worked with the beer and meat, brewing and butchering it: and women dealt with grounding grain and baking bread. Throughout the kingdoms, an evolution of gender roles in society took place.
In the Ancient world, much like today, each society exercised, according to their custom, different treatment towards women. Today, unlike in the Ancient world, women enjoy more freedom, rights, and equality. In this essay, the status of women in ancient Egypt will be compared to the status of women in ancient Rome. Academic sources will be relied on to provide the necessary actualities when one investigates ancient lives and cultures. The legal status of women in society, the different roles that each unique nation’s women played, and the possible education permitted and occupations available to these women will be discussed, as well as, their domestic atmospheres will be critically compared in this short essay to demonstrate the different treatment (if there were a difference) of women in both these imposing periods of ancient history.
Over generations, the role of women in society has shifted and changed immensely, improving upon many aspects of rights and values that women have. The changes occurred gave women opportunities to provide ideas, to have the same rights as men, giving women freedom, leading to many contributions of many significant and valuable events. But from current roles of women being equal to those of men, how women stood in ancient society significantly differs and contrast with ours today. Throughout history, the role and significance of women were always outweighed by the dominance and influence of men. The role of women in ancient times varied throughout, depending on the place and area in the world, in which women had different roles and impacts on their own society.
Over the years there have been many controversial ethical issues which are still debated in the 21st century. In today’s modern society one such controversial issue is prostitution. Prostitution can be defined as “The act or practice of engaging in sexual intercourse for money” (Deigh, 2010, p.29). Prostitution is the oldest profession of all. However the ethics of prostitution is still unclear between many societies.
