The Concept of Gender in the Study of Ancient History
In antiquity gender was a defining feature of life, we can note that
it affected the way society was structured, specifically in the
Athenian 'polis', as well as public events, such as those associated
with religious cults. Gender was also influential in politics,
especially that of the Romans. Moreover, it is through gender that we
can observe the general ancient view towards women, found throughout
numerous literary sources and archaeological remains.
Firstly, there is a strong link between gender and the Athenian
'polis', which was commonly considered to be 'male dominated'.[1]
From an early age male and female youths were polarised, so that males
were educated professionally, with a strong emphasis on completing
sports at the 'palaestrai' and 'gymnasia', then they were sent away to
complete their military service. In contrast, women were denied no
more than basic schooling. However they were introduced into society
through religious cults. It is through education that the classical
Athenians erected a prominent division between the sexes, in order to
prepare the youths for their roles in later life-men for leadership in
state and military affairs, women for more subordinate roles.
For example, archaeological evidence suggests that young men were
groomed for prominent positions in the state, that is, pitchers have
been found that illustrate boys celebrating the festival,
'Anthesterion', 'the flower month', by sampling wine and participating
in crawling races. The former would have been a simplistic pre-taster
for male youths of a 'symposium', philosophical sessions inter...
... middle of paper ...
... of the Phallus: p.305 ff.
[3] E.Keuls: The Reign of the Phallus:p.300 ff.
[4] Xenophon: Anabasis: chapter 6 ff.
[5] Xenophon: Oikonomikos: chapter 6.23-25.
[6] E.Keuls: The Reign of the Phallus: p.300 ff.
[7] Louvre: A517.
[8] Hans Van Wees: A Brief History of Tears: p.42.
[9] Homer: Odyssey: Bk.5.155-160.
[10]Homer: Odyssey: Bk.20.52-60.
[11] Aeschylus: Agamemnon: l.916-920.
[12] Homer: Iliad: Bk.18.23 ff.
[13] Aeschylus: Agamemnon: l.166-8.
[14] Aeschylus: Agamemnon: l.8 ff.
[15] Solon: 20.2.
[16] G.Clark: Roman Women: p.50.
[17] Dio: 58.2.3.
[18] Fischler: Women in Ancient Society.
[19] Fischler: Women in Ancient Society.
[20] Valerius Maximus: 8.3.
[21] Juvenal: Satire 6.127 ff.
[22] Juvenal: Satire 2.167 ff.
[23] Juvenal: Satire 1,3,10.
[2] Homer's Iliad: books 13 &14. [3]Aeneid: book: 1.144 ff. [4] Aeneid: book: 1.88-89. [5] Ovid's Metamorphoses: translated by A.D.Melville: p.16. [6] Galinsky: Ovid's Metamorphoses: p.168. [7]Metamorphoses: p.7.
Most classical society’s political and social organization revolved around the idea of patriarchy, a male dominated social system. This system exacerbated the inherit difference between men and woman and assigned gender roles based on these observations. Men were generally regarded as superior to woman therefore given greater religious and political roles as well as more legal rights. As the natural inverse, women were subordinated and seen as week; their main roles reproductive and domestic. Information about patriarchy in the classical era, though abundant, was, for the most part, written by men, therefore history does not give us an accurate depiction of women’s viewpoints. Four societies of the classical era, India, China, Greece, and Rome, adopted a patriarchal system, however, due to many factors, each developed identifiable characteristics.
Abstract: Texts, such as Oeconomicus, reveal that while men in Archaic Greek society had authority over their wives, they were too confident of their control, and once they taught women how to act and behave they granted women authority over the household or private sphere. This segregation of the public and private spheres allowed women control not only over the private sphere, but also some control over her own life.
In ancient Greece, there were clear differences regarding the manner in which men and women should behave. Males were expected to be the dominant sex, ruling over the land and people without any input from females. They were the sole breadwinners for the families and were to be given the utmost respect at all times. In contrast, women were to remain in the shadow of their husbands, not speak up or retaliate in any way, and complete household chores such as cleaning and caring for the children. In fact, they could not sleep in the same room as the men and were rarely allowed to leave the home. If they were to stray from these specific roles, they would face serious consequences and have even more of their little freedom taken away by the males.
Why were women treated as minorities compared to men even when they had played major roles in Greek Mythology? Women have always played a very important role in Greek Society, either they were portrayed as a victim, heroine, or villain. Some women that were portrayed as these roles were Antitope, Leda, Athena, Antigone, Clytemnestra, and Medea. Antitope and Leda were portrayed as victims. Athena and Antigone were portrayed as a heroine. Clytemnestra and Medea were portrayed as villains.
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.
Even in the first civilizations sexsim was very prevalent, women were not included in democracy, they were not allowed to vote, and in some earlier civilizations women were not even allowed to have a job or go outside the home. Even as a 16 year old girl in America, the supposed land of dreams, I see sexism everyday. I see it when I watch the news, I see it when I’m walking down the halls at my school, I even see it when I read novels and articles or watch a movie online. Over 60% of serious journalism roles are given to males, while the women are left with the less important, or less popular sections. In school I see boys calling girls stupid, or girls getting a pass to go to their locker because they forgot something, even though a boy was just denied. I notice sexism the most in literature and movies, I see female characters being “airheads” or acting dumb and helpless, their main role in the piece is to wait for the male character to save them, or to be a comic relief. Not only are women’s jobs and dignity at stake but our sexuality, education and rights are too.
In modern day society, female gender roles are defined in several of forms; ranging from the stereotypical concept of women being the primary caretakers to women being the dominant sex. After analyzing two sources of past literature, two iconic women represent personas of both social standings. In the literary works “Genesis” of The Hebrew Bible; along with, “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes, impactful phenomena take place in the era of these women.
Homer. ?The Odyssey,? World Masterpieces: Expanded Edition. Maynard Mack ed. Ed. Coptic St.: Prentice, 1995.
Gender is a socially constructed term used to identify masculinity and femininity based on the biological sex of male and female. Romans and Greeks have many similar artistic styles, since the Romans copied many of their art techniques from the Greeks, especially the creation of the human body that the Greeks were very interested in beccause of the competitive streak in creating the most naturalistically porprotional humand body . The Terracotta Plaque, by an unknown artist, dated 27 B.C - 68 A.D during the Roman culture is a terracotta, which is a type of ceramic clay used by the Greeks to make many of their potery, whose image on the plaque also has many of the artistic styles used by the Greeks to illustarte the human body. The media compaign that is being created will discuss being against discrimination based on gender through this art piece that I choose in order to demonstrate the form in which women’s feminity and men’s masculinity is portrayed, as feminity being evil yet submissive and masculinity as being strength and dominance. Through the symbolic items held by the man, the animals used by both the man and woman, and the displayment of their bodies one can demonstrate the discrimination of gender.
Women have given birth to new generations for centuries and have the common stereotype of being caring and gentle. But in the creation myth, women were given to man as a punishment. In the book of collected Greek tales, " Mythology Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes", by Edith Hamilton, women take up important roles that shape each story. Although women are usually characterized as being helpful and motherly, Greek mythology, on the other hand, portrays them to cause distress, fear, and anxiety to numerous men. Women’s actions are shown to be influenced with jealousy and vengeance which gives them an evil nature.
Through investigations of writers as diverse as Silvia Federici, and Angela Davis, Maria Mies, and Sharon Hays, Judith Butler, and Steven Gregory we have come to understand that confronting the categorization of gender differences is a complex and nuanced project. Whether one is an ontologist, exploring the metaphysical nature of gender differences (that may or may not lead down the road of essentialism) or a phenomenologist exploring how exactly it is that one “does” gender—to the extent that there even exists a concept called gender—one must employ a varied and multipartite approach. Writers such as Federici, Mies, and Davis sketched out a framework of the history of gender roles for us. From what Federici calls a time of primitive consumption through feudalism, to the time of slavery and rapid industrialization and, indeed, through our current technological revolution, we have seen the basic gender differences between the sexes evolve over time. To be sure, our notions of what is expected from both women and men have changed since prehistoric times, and they continue to evolve. Sharon Hays in the chapter “Pyramids of Innequality” of her book Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform shows us how, in the United States, poverty and access to the social safety net have been raced and gendered. She provides a springboard for further investigation.
The position of women in Classical Athens has often been described as subordinate in comparison to men. Women were categorized in very particular ways: Athenian women were wives, while those who migrated to Athens from other city-states were slaves or prostitutes. Countless literature, from tragedy to comedy and political texts, reinforces the notion that citizen women were meant to serve their husbands within the confines of the oikos and produce legitimate sons in order to further the glory of men while non-Athenian women served their purpose towards men through sexual pleasure. While there may be partial truth to these views, Athenian women played a crucial role in the religious sphere. Religion was directly linked to civic identity and was a fundamental and sacred element of not only a city-state, but to Greece as a whole during the Classical period. Surviving documentation has demonstrated that Athenian women played a vital part to specific religious traditions, such as the participation in the festivals of Thesmophoria and Adonia. Furthermore, there exists evidence that proves women could also acquire the position of priestess for particular cults, a position that increased their reputation and status in a culture that considered them inferior. These marginalized women used religion as a way to carve out a sacred and protect space for themselves, using it to create a sense of freedom in their lives and to bridge the gap in equality between them and the dominant men.
Women in antiquity did not have an easy lot in life. They had few, if any, rights. Surviving early records of the civilizations of antiquity from ancient Greece, Egypt, China, and Rome suggest the diversity of women’s roles differed little from region to region. There were a few exceptions, mostly concerning women of nobility and the city-state of Sparta. Excluding the rare instances mentioned most antique women were generally limited on education, mobility, and almost all possibilities interfering with domestic or childbearing responsibilities. The limited social roles of women in antiquity suggest the perceived c...
1. "The Internet Classics Archive | Phaedo by Plato." The Internet Classics Archive | Phaedo by