Analysis of Gender Roles In Different Civilizations

It is clear that throughout the Western tradition men and women occupied different roles in different civilizations. Separate rights and privileges were awarded to either sex based upon the places that their cultures designated for them. Though every culture had those that would (often justifiably) upset the order of things by challenging conventional gender roles, ultimately, one was more likely to be confined by the limitations of what society said one could do. Religion in particular tended to codify the separate treatment of men and women; it could not be easily defied, because of the divine power behind it. Although no two religions were quite the same, a few generalizations can be made; monotheistic cultures allowed less fluidity between masculine and feminine gender roles and gave males a more powerful place in their societies, where polytheistic gender roles permitted greater flexibility and were more likely to sanction female authority figures.

The famous walled city or Uruk in ancient Sumer is the oldest polytheistic culture to be documented. Uruk worshiped a pantheon of gods and goddesses such as the warrior goddess Ishtar, patron of the city, Anu, father of the gods and Shamash, god of the sun and of justice. The first and most obvious piece of evidence for the presence of elastic gender roles and female power is the fact there are both gods and goddesses in this Sumerian religion. Rather than a male dominated powerhouse in the heavens, Uruk recognized the goddesses as an equally powerful, and active, force in the cosmos. In the epic of Gilgamesh, goddesses appear to be a more dynamic force than some of the gods in the story. Gilgamesh, the protagonist of the epic, purportedly “two-thirds divine and one-third huma...

... middle of paper ...

..., those belonging to monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam tended to give women the least freedom; possibly because the single divine entity in these religions, God, was male and encouraged male oriented worship. Polytheistic religions like those in Uruk, Egypt, Greece and Rome allowed women a greater ability to decide their own future, whether to an extreme degree, like the complete legal equality of Egypt, or to a lesser one, as in the housewives of Greece, most likely because the pantheon of gods included powerful female figures that provided an example for female believers to follow and male ones to observe. Monotheistic religions forbade women accumulating power by participating in masculine activities, whereas polytheistic religions encouraged women to meet men as level a playing field could be found in a decidedly sexist environment.