Gender And Gender Roles In Woman Of Willendorf

By any metric, the middle ages in Europe was not an egalitarian society. Gender roles were heavily ingrained in the culture, with men meant to have aggressive masculine traits, and women to have fragile feminine traits.The practice of minting coins was perfected by Roman Emperors such as Augustus, Vespasian, and Diocletian, and as many Roman customs did, it became adopted by medieval kings, particularly Anglo-Saxons ones. The minting of coins not only served as a way to facilitate the exchange of goods and services, but they also were political tools utilised by leaders. Cynethryth, Queen of Mercia and Wife of Offa the Great, was the only Anglo-Saxon Queen we know of who issued her own coinage1. This not only has implications for the political eptitude of Cynethryth, but also has significance to understanding of medieval gender roles and how women in power operated and exercised authority.

When I think about gender roles in the past I automatically think about men and how they were more powerful than the women. The men could not do anything wrong in society’s eyes but women had to walk on egg shells to make the men happy. When I think of the men and women in the past I automatically think about how the men went out and worked while the women stayed at the house had children and stayed in the kitchen. The men could go out and cheat on the women all they want but if a woman even thought about talking to a man they would be punished.

I read through all the text and kept going back to the Woman of Willendorf. In class, it has been mentioned that the exaggerated attributes of the sculpture describe how voluptuous and wealthy a woman was at the time. In the text, it says the sculpture portrays a woman who is well-nourished and has the best conditions of giving birth to strong babies. What I thought was interesting is how that sculpture was the ideal size of women of the time, whereas women who were skinny were depicted as malnourished women who lived in poverty. Nowadays, women of that size are deemed to be obese and unhealthy, and the ideal women size is a one with curves, small waist and larger bottom.

Gender roles of diverse cultures have differed immensely throughout history. The evolution of gender roles first began in the Paleolithic Age and then began to transform with the transformation of the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Age. Women in Mesopotamia, India, Greece, China, and Rome were not treated as equals and viewed as inferior to men. Cultures like Egypt and Persia had similar laws for women and treated them with more respect out of any of the other cultures.

Women in Medieval Europe lived the life one may expect them to live from the 5th and 15th centuries. We know today that women are treated equal compared to men (in most cases), and we also know that Women were not always given the freedoms that they have today. This was no different in Medieval Europe during these times. Women were expected to hold jobs in which they took care of children and tended the household, occasionally helping their husbands with crops during the busy part of the planting year (bl.uk). Also as we would expect, men had complete power and say in the relationship (wikipedia.org). Women lived a lot more different back in Medieval times than they do today, but it was their lifestyle, and they did what society asked of them, whether they wanted to or not.

The Venus of Willendorf is a sculpture that was sculpted out of limestone and stands to be 4 ½’’ tall. The figurine was most likely carved out of limestone because early pre-historic artists generally had to create art out of whatever materials they had available. The figurine is only 4 ½” tall is because it was common for pre-historic artists to carve small, hand held, portable figurines. The sculpture was found on the banks of the Danube River, an area where pre-historic hunter-gatherers were thought to have lived and traded goods with other civilians. The use of this piece of artwork is to portray the importance of women and fertility in pre-historic times because these features are ones that ensured the survival and future of mankind.

The film industry has created the conventional gender roles of society into their movies; A majority of films have supported some of the male and female stereotypes. In the history of the film industry, the role of men is primarilythat of the stereotypical working class man or hero, while the roles of women are primarily portrayed as being somewhat inferior to men. In the 1930s through the 1970s, men held the leading roles in films while women played smaller roles. Men were typically employed, successful gentlemen, while the woman’s only job was a housewife. The film industry was mostly dominated by men. In terms of jobs, women were given mostly family roles and rarely were shown outside of their homes, while men had

In many shops, there seems to be an obvious separation between boys and girls items, for example, the birthday cards, books, clothes, and toys. This is shown in a variety of ways the boy's items are mainly the color blue and the books have pictures of either action figures, superheroes or tools. Whereas the girl's items are mainly the color pink. The books show pictures of fairies, princess, and Bratz. The cards also have the theme of the color pink for girls and blue for boys. The girl's cards have a lot of sparkles and pretty pictures whereas the boy's cards are covered in camo kind of illustrations and also have action figures on the covers. The children's clothes are separated into sections where there are labels for the boy's clothes and labels for the girl's clothes. The girl's clothing is all pretty and pink, it is covered in sparkles. Whereas boys clothing has camo patterns, blue colors, and pictures of action figures.

In present day all around the world, society has certain expectations for the actions and behaviors of males and females. There are many factors in our everyday lives that contribute to the gender norms that society has set. This essay will discuss how situations in life can play a part in how people treat other people based on their gender. It is believed that males are the leaders of our world, but in present day woman can do as much as men can do. From The Journal of Marriage and Family, Hu states, “Differentiated gender roles in adulthood are rooted in one’s gender role socialization. In order to understand the persistence of gender inequalities in the domestic sphere, we need to examine the gendered patterns of children’s housework time.”(2015, P.1). Gender roles are society’s expectations of the proper behavior, attitudes, and activities of males and females that they must be taught. These roles define how females and males are viewed in society, their household, and workplace. In The Journal of Sports behavior by Hardin, he states, “Although gender role differences from biological and “Natural” exists in popular consciousness, research has long demonstrated that instead, many are long time socially constructed… Individuals understand their gender because they are given names and treated in particular ways, such as dress in pink for girls and blue for boys, that reflect social construction of gender. Bandura's social cognitive theory is key in understanding the factors in socialization”(2009, P.3). Bandura's theory of of social cognition is that behavior, environmental events, and cognitive factors are the main keys that shape attitudes and actions of an individual. Although, gender roles play a very big part in our society, specific genders are treated differently while dealing with peer influence, media influence, as well as employment.

Throughout history, gender roles have proven to be a persistent characteristic of societies, forcing predetermined structure upon the lives of both men and women. Even in the New World of America, gender roles followed close behind the ships of the first settlers, making an impact on the creation of the American colonies. By the late 18th century, New England’s gender roles had tightened on the coattails of both the Great Awakening, which promoted religious structure and hierarchy, and the further development of the American colonies into a more successful society. Although the opposite may be argued, including more women becoming educated and having a more important role at home, such as in will and testaments, these portraits clearly demonstrate that gender roles of the 18th century continued to be incredibly relevant and impactful. Through analysis of Dr. and Mrs. Hezekiah Beardsleys’ portraits it is apparent that gender roles were of major importance in the New England society implementing the predetermined molds of which society demanded, however, deviations from these roles were also present and significant in contradicting the usual structure of gender roles.

This article shows how Paleoanthropologist David Lordkipanidze and his group of archeologist discovered a 1.8 million-year-old skull fossil that could lead to knowing more about the earliest known ancestors of humans that ventured outside of Africa. Lordkipanidze’s excavation in the Georgia site known as Dmanisi. With this archeology find, it has been concluded that all early fossil humans belong to the same species known as Homo erectus. The article explains that the Dmanisi hominins had brains less than half the size of a modern human’s, and are key to understand the evolution and expansion these ancestors experienced from Africa to Eurasia. Genetic studies indicate that their expansion began from Africa about 1.9 million years ago. The article also mentions that with these new findings there can be a better ground from where to start to understand these ancestors as how they lived and socialized. Lordkipanidze does mention that the Dmanisi “were very primitive, we think there were social groups that connected with each other and learned from each other”.

To start off the comparison between the woman from Willendorf and Aphrodite of Melos, it’s important to give a brief overview of both. The Woman from Willendorf was a Human free-standing figurine from the upper paleolithic period(pg 6), depicting a woman with an emphasis on her womanly traits, such as her breast and hips. She is thought to be a votive figure; which tribes would offer to another tribe as a sign of fertility and that the other tribe wanted to mingle with their tribe. The Aphrodite of Melos was found on the Island of Milos and is from the Hellenistic period in history.(pg157) It depicts a sensualized depiction of the Greek goddess, Aphrodite’s. The Greeks were cannier on finding the ideal versions of beauty and that can really

Sculpture: Very few of their sculptures are around today, but the most famous is the Woman of Willendorf, which is thought to have a connection to fertility.

Women have always had an important role in this planet, as a companion, worker, nurture and child-bearing. By being a life-giver, women have a special and important role in the community, not only in the 21st century but since the beginning of time. In the Prehistoric Period, more specifically in the Paleolithic Era, people seem to acknowledge this because anthropologist have found a great quantity of Venus Figurines form this period. Venus Figurines are small statuettes that resembles the female body with slight differences. These statues have enlarged breasts, swollen abdomen, and large buttocks, most of them or at least the Venus of Wialdfor had the face covered and both arms and legs seem to be cut in half.

The Venus of Willendorf is said to be the first masterpiece of world sculptures. It belongs to a series of Venus figurines of the Paleolithic period or “Old Stone Age.” This period was characterized by crude stone and bone weapons, cave paintings, and sculptures. The Venus was found in a small village of Austria called Willendorf, hence the name of the Venus. This groundbreaking discovery was made in 1908 by the archaeologist Josef Szombathy. However, it was not until 1990 when we were able to predict the time when the sculpture was carved. It is believed to have been made between 25,000 B.C.E and 20,000 B.C.E. The sculpture is only 4,4 inches tall and it is made of oolitic limestone, which is a carbonate rock commonly found in India, around the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean Islands, but not Austria. Therefore, archeologists believe that this sculpture was moved from its original place of creation. Continuing with that idea, because of the fact that the sculpture does not have defined feet so it is not able to stand and that it is small and malleable, historians believe that it was originally made to be carried around as a talisman or a sign of good luck, especially for fertility purposes. It is important to notice how the structure of this sculpture highlights some human features (breasts, belly, hips, vulva) while minimizing others, such as arms and legs. The Venus represents the first aesthetic ideas of our early history, which has