The Censorship of Opposition Looking back in history, it seems like most societies become less conservative and more accepting of their ways as time goes on. While this is true for a vast majority of societies, it isn’t always the case. In fact, comparing ancient Indian society to itself a few centuries later, it appears that instead of becoming more accepting and understanding, they got even more conservative than before. Rather than slowly eliminating gender roles and becoming more accepting of individuality, the Indian society progressed alternatively to what is expected. This transformation of society can be seen in the differences between the Mahabharata and Kalidasa’s play. In the Mahabharata, Sakuntala, the mother of Bharata, is a powerful …show more content…
Sakuntala stands up for herself when the deal she makes with Dahsunta, the king, goes wrong. He asks her for her hand in marriage, and she agrees on the condition that if their child is a son, he will be heir to the throne. Dahsunta agrees to this and Sakuntala becomes pregnant. Once she gives birth to the child, who is a boy, she goes to Dahsunta and tells him that her son is the heir to Dahsunta’s throne. Rather than accept this agreement, he denounces that he knows her and calls her a liar. Sakuntala, eventually fed up with his denials, proceeds to call the king a “lying commoner” (122). This is an extreme insult to a king because the last thing he wants to be compared to is an average person. Sakuntala proves how she won’t sit by when Dahsunta denies the allegations. This is a powerful moment because it proves that women are able to stand up for themselves and that they shouldn’t sit by when society is against them. Society in ancient times acknowledged its disrespect towards women. This is true when Duhsanta replies to Sakuntala and tells her that “Women are liars - who will trust your word? Menaka, your mother, was a merciless slut” (123). This fact is important because it proves that the writer of the Mahabharata knew that there was a patriarchy present and that there was an oppression towards women in this time. The ability to be self-aware of the problems in one’s …show more content…
Rather than have Sakuntala be an even more powerful women with more duties as a leader potentially, she is actually toned down and censored from her original ways that were explained in the Mahabharata. Sakuntala has little notion of social approval and doesn’t care about it because she knows what she wants in the Mahabharata, but then in Kalidasa’s play, she changes drastically. Rather than yell at the king to voice her disapproval of the situation like in the Mahabharata, Sakuntala resorts to showing Dahsunta the ring he gave her. She tells the audience in a stage whisper “My noble husband… Since our marriage is in doubt, this is no way to address him” (150). Sakuntala begins to speak about her noble husband but breaks her whisper because she is emotional about the situation. This change is extremely significant because rather than yell at the king like before, she is now placing the burden on herself by feeling that the only way to prove that they are married is to show Dahsunta the ring he gave her. This reaction is important because now she is a much more complicit and traditionally feminine figure. Society views women as more emotionally unstable, so by having Sakuntala face an emotional reaction, she is playing into the gender role of society. The play, which changes this to add dramatic
Henrik Ibsen once said, “A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.”(Notable Quotes) Ibsen’s statement exemplifies what life was like for women during ancient times. In many of the organized ancient civilizations, it was very common to find a primarily patriarchal civilization in government as well as in society. The causing factors can be attributed to different reasons, the main being the Neolithic Revolution and the new found dependence on manpower it caused. As a result of this, a woman found herself to be placed into an entirely different view in the eye of society. In comparison to the early Paleolithic matriarchal societies, the kinds of changes that came about for women due to the introduction of agriculture are shocking. Since the beginnings of the Neolithic era, the role and rights of women in many ancient civilizations began to become limited and discriminatory as a result of their gender.
The history of the Middle Ages is generally known through the recorded accomplishments of wealthy aristocratic men. The rigidly stratified social structure allowed little or no chance for advancement, especially for the very poor. Therefore, the voice of the poverty stricken masses goes unheard or is simply drowned out by the ruling class. However, beyond even the discontented whisper of the poor, another voice without even a breath to push it yearns to be heard. This is a voice that would ultimately help to integrate medieval society and help to establish a more civilized culture in Britain. No louder than a whisper, this is the voice of women. It is a silent cry whose importance was underestimated and undervalued both economically and socially.
Document one shows that a woman in India should be taken care of by the men in her life; her father cares for her as a child, her husband while she is a wife, and her sons as an elder. Even though women are to be honored and taken care of, they are still involved in a patriarchal society and do not have much independence. For the men, this is very important in dharma, as it is essential to take care of your wife if you wish to become closer to unity with the divine essence. Even so, compared to a woman 's place in
Women in The Epic of Gilgamesh plays a very significant role. Women were not considered as the most powerful gods nor the strongest or wisest of all humans but they still had great influence over others around them, at that time of Mesopotamia. Though the main characters of the story, Gilgamesh and Enkidu were men, women did not necessarily play a minor role. The roles of women in The Epic of Gilgamesh were mixed. Women are represented as harlots (Shamhat), wise (Ninsun) and as gods (Ishtar. In the epic of Gilgamesh, it can be seen that while men were considered to be the most powerful and wisest humans and gods, women had the power to significantly influence these men. Several women mentioned and described in the Epic of Gilgamesh carried roles that had important effects on the men they encountered. One woman I found very interesting is Ishtar, the goddess of love and fertility. I will discuss how women were being portrayed in the story using her character to support my analysis and how the creators of this epic portrayed women in Mesopotamia through this character.
The roles of women have altered our lives substantially from the beginning of time. Take the example of Eve in the Garden of Eden. If the theory is true that our existence relies completely on a God who created us, then had Eve not eaten the forbidden fruit, humanity would not have been born apart from the only two people on Earth.
In the society we live in, gender plays a great role, is not biological rader it’s refereed to as a social behavior pattern. It is constructed on male and female character and traditional beliefs. The society has often reflected its passion on gender roles. For instance In the media today women are given roles that suit men which makes them challenge men for their right, they are represented as entertainment for men, women are likely to be the source of leading news stories nowadays.
Gender roles have been a predominant factor in our world since the early emergence of human societies whether they are positive or negative. They are based on expectations that societies have over the people in them. The Epic of Sunjata, shows us how men and women are treated almost equally in different forms. Women are praised for their ability to birth leaders, which is similar to the early Greek Society. In most societies, women are treated less equal than men. This was prevalent in the early Indian society. No matter the gender role, it has been shown that any society cannot survive without both men and women.
The struggle for women to play an important role in history can be traced from the ancient Mesopotamians to the 1900’s. There has been a continuous battle for women to gain equal rights and to be treated equally in all aspects of life. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest recorded account of the roles of women and their importance in a functional society. Women have been viewed as anything from goddesses to unwanted servants throughout history, regardless of a variety of changes in rulers, religions, and simply time periods. The Epic of Gilgamesh might lead one to consider the roles of women a small and insignificant part compared to the man 's role. In fact, three women; Shamhat, Ishtar, and Siduri, were able to create and maintain a civilized Mesopotamian society with using their uniqueness of their body, mind, and spirit.
In examining the Buddhist religion, particularly the role of women in Buddhism, it was. quite clear that the religion of Buddhism is practiced very differently from country to country. The sand is Buddhism is a philosophy of life expounded by Gautama Buddha ("Buddha" means "enlightened"). one"), who lived and taught in northern India in the 6th Century B.C. The Buddha was not a god and the philosophy of Buddhism does not entail any theistic world-view.
From ancient hunter gatherers to the modern-day woman, gender roles have changed drastically over time and they continue to evolve today. Across the world women have had to fight for rights, but it wasn’t always this way. In ancient cultures women had more freedoms than in western societies, furthermore, as history progresses western influence crushes the native way of thinking resulting in male dominated societies. Eventually women suffrage movements would finally appear after industrialization in the 1800-1900’s. Key events throughout history would shift the gender constructions namely war, industrialization, and time. Struggling to understand native cultures western influence would commit genocide on native cultures, leading to cultural
The Realm of Women in Literature “So it is naturally with the male and the female; the one is superior, the other inferior; the one governs, the other is governed; and the same rule must necessarily hold good with respect to all mankind.” This quote, spoken by the famous Aristotle, proves to be timeless. The words express knowledge concerning gender that proves to be centuries ahead of its time. Aristotle, however, may not have even realized the amount of truth expressed in these few, simple words. Men are commonly thought of as the dominant of the two sexes, but as we have seen through many of the literary works studied, this is most certainly not the case.
In the novel This Earth Of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, discrimination against social structure, race, and gender is apparent. The setting is in the Indies, or now called Indonesia. At that time, there are terms for different races in the book, which are “Native” indicating someone who is pure Indonesian, “Indo” a half European and half Indonesian, and “Pure Blood” or “European” when someone is pure European. An Indo and a Pure Blood receives more respect in society than a Native. Furthermore, European or Pure Blood is at the top of this social hierarchy, people who are European or Pure Blood receives the utmost respect in society. Differences in gender is prevalent in this novel, where most women in this book have power in their own homes, but in society is looked down upon. Female characters experiencing these are Annelies, the main character’s love interest, Nyai Ontosoroh, Annelies’ mother who is a concubine, and Magda Peters, the main character’s European teacher. Women in this novel are portrayed differently according to what race, social structure, and gender they are born in, which can be seen through Nyai Ontosoroh, Annelies, and Magda Peters.
The Ramayana as retold by R.K. Narayan, explores the roles and duty of women and what it takes in order to be a good woman in Indian society. He explores these roles through the women through out the epic whether it is the wife of a King or some form of deity. While in general women were viewed as subpar to men and were seen as second-class citizens, the women in the book shape the men into who they become and account for much of the manipulation of the individuals and the caretaking of the individuals. Women such as Sita and Kausalya demonstrate those women that are good. These women were regarded as beautiful, not only for their physical attributes, but for their behavior in regards to the males in the epic. They are everything women should be- they are kind and respect the males in their lives above all else. However these women are also met with their opposites, those women who have much improvement to make before being recognized as good women in the Indian society. These women, like Kaikeyi and Soorpanaka go against all Indian ideals. They use their sexuality in order to attempt to manipulate the men of the epic. They do everything in their power in order to get their way, even if it is at the cost of others.
Comparatively men are not subject to gender constraints. Rama asserts that, “I am a king and my first and final dharma is toward my people”(Valmiki,649). In contrast Sita endures extreme events of calamity dependent upon Rama. Rama mentions, “Do not think of a moment Sita that I came for your sake” (Valimiki, 494). Therefore women are portrayed as secondary to honor and status of men. The role of women is predetermined to exemplify a paradigm wife, with contrastingly miniscule reciprocal behavior from the role men. Women are viewed as property of men vulnerable to suffering and hardship at the demands of the male characters. The men are liberated from gender constraints whereas women are sexually oppressed with a role dependent upon their relationship and subordinate nature to their
The role women play in today’s society is a drastic change from the previous role. Women used to be confined to the superiority of the man. Physically, mentally, and emotionally abused, belittled, embarrassed, and silenced. These are just a few examples of the emotion from the isolated treatment of the past. A woman’s role in today’s society is more valued than ever before.