Gender Roles In Paleolithic Society

Men have a much more valiant lifestyle and are perceived to be honorable rather than mendacious. Society identifies women as being incapable of accomplishing tasks that are expected of males. Also, society refers to women as deceitful beings with ulterior motives designed to advance their own personal agendas. Men are much more powerful than women because, unlike women, men are not constantly limited by social norms and are allowed to be the oppressors of women. Women are left without a voice even though it is proven by Silence that they are able to be as noble or even more so than the men around them.

Our world has been a male dominated society from the beginning of time. In most cultures, especially in ancient times, women were thought of as secondary to their male counterparts. Women were considered a possession just as a house or piece of property is considered a possession. The role of women in these early societies did not receive an education but was to take care of the household and have children. The women of the Minoan and Mycenaean ancient Greece cultures held much more roles than homemakers and mothers; they were allowed more freedoms and rights also oracles, priestesses, and political advisors yet they are also seen by men as nothing more than a mere possession.

As time progressed, the roles of men and women were more defined by what usefulness they had and what society found appropriate. Women were not allowed to obtain education, travel, or go out in public

Periodization 1 and its many events fits into 5 different groups Social, Political, Interactive, Cultural, economical, or SPICE. The first category, Social can be further divided into gender roles and relationships, family structure, and class structures. Gender roles during the Paleolithic era honored women. Venus statues were all the rage, and in cave paintings, you can see the females painted larger that the males. However, once you get to the Neolithic era and the agriculture revolution, women faded to the background, doing menial jobs and having kids. That also affected the family structure. The class structure, which was non existent during the the Paleolithic era, popped up in most societies individual. For example, in Egypt, a class system was set up which had the pharaoh on top, can be compared to the Indians caste system with the Brahmins as the top there.

Gender roles in ancient Mesopotamia were clearly defined (teachmiddleeast.edu). Generally, men worked outside of the home and women stayed inside of the home while focusing on raising their children and keeping up with work that took place in the home. However, there were exceptions; we know of women who were “bartenders” and even women who were priestesses, but with limited responsibility. Due to the fact that some were from socially higher families and owned large amounts of property, those women were not allowed to marry. Women at the time were given much less freedom than men, however, women were more protected than men, which is seen in Hammurabi’s Code of Law, specifically in his 130th law:

From the Stone Age time, the society was for men. First, men use their physical ability to rule the female and society. After that, when human being had the intellectual life, it wasn¡¯t really open to female. In other words, female couldn¡¯t have the chances to learn as much as male could. Therefore, men could protect themselves from the challenge of female.

Majority of the ancient societies portrayed similarities in the presentation of women and girls. In other words, women and girls in the traditional communities were given similar roles and were regarded as the inferior members of the society. Men were viewed as members of the superior gender and due to this; they were given the primary responsibilities in the society and were also regarded as the heads of the family and the entire community. In most cases, women took the roles and responsibilities of housewives, caretakers, nurturers, reproducers, and mothers while men were given the responsibility of managing the society. The classification of diverse roles for women and men was destructive on the side of the females as men sought to dominate them, take advantage of them and even oppress them and this resulted in the case of gender imbalance and inequality. It is clear that men were insensitive about this division and hence scholars rose to represent the fate of women through writing. The Tale of Kieu by Nguyen and the Separate Ways by Chiyo portray women as oppressed, voiceless and members of an inferior gender.

Women's lives, roles, and statuses changed over various early world history eras and culture areas in many ways. Ancient Persia, Paleolithic, Athens, Mesopotamian and Roman eras were all different in very unique ways. The Paleolithic era treated women fairly and were treated equally. During the Neolithic era women were not treated fairly. She was the daughter of her father or the wife of her husband. Women rarely acted as individuals outside the context of their families. Those who did so were usually royalty or the wives of men who had power and status.” (oi.uchicago.edu, 2010) Athenian women were not treated fairly

An example of gender inequality of men can be observed in the culture of the Persians, which had assisted them in upholding their massive empire. For instance, as mentioned in The Histories: Customs of the Persian, it says in terms of being brace in battle a guy is measure in his manliness through the number of sons he presents, and each year the king gifts to the man who does such. They school their sons from the age of five to twenty in mainly three things: horseback riding, archery, and telling the truth. The boy does face their father until the age of five. This is done so if he dies while growing up he won’t cause grief to his father. These features of the Persians had played a significant role of how they acquired a large kingdom which can be seen in The Persian Empire Under Darius I’s Map (pg.67). This tactic of using men for their advantage in gaining imperial power had deprived them of their chance to take part in other interests

Throughout history gender has played a defining role in the structure and function of civilizations all over the world. Women were usually deemed as inferior to men in most nations thus leading to a plethora of unfair treatment and social unrest. There were, however, various times in history when women actually stood up for their rights as human beings and spoke out against these atrocities. An example of this is the story of Abina, a young African woman who was unlawfully enslaved in 1876. She made the courageous decision to run away and speak out against her master in court despite insurmountable odds. A political and business world dominated by men led to her case being unjustly dismissed despite having proof to back up her grievances. Just like many other cases at this time, the fact that Abina was a woman worked against her. Quamina Eddoo, his lawyer William Melton, and the all-male jury condemned Abina from the beginning thus leading to her accusations against the accused as being dismissed. The case was doomed from the beginning because of the established societal norm that women were inferior to men. In almost every example of early colonization, the role of women has been greatly devalued and ignored as the male populace strived to be the most powerful and important figures in society.

Then in society, men were portrayed as “dominant figures” and women were the “nurturers”. Men not only filled the fatherly role but they also usually earned the “breadwinning”, went to work all day, and financially provided for the wives and

In the Paleolithic era, social hierarchy was determined by multiple factors such as position in the family, gender, age, and favorable personality traits. Titles were given to establish positions within each band. Titles could include, mother, father, husband, wife, brother, sister, child, etc. The higher the position in the band came power over others. (John P. McKay, Understanding World Societies, Pg14). The division of labor was determined by a person’s sex and age. With biological factors, it was inevitable that there would be a division of labor for men and women. Women biologically are able to breast feed their young, which takes several years. At this time period formula was not invented yet, so breast milk was the only source of nutrition for infants. Women would breast feed and the men would most likely care for the infants. In a sense the women and men split the work to care for their young. Since the Paleolithic people had to rely on moving from place to place to gather their food, women also worked outdoors. The women gathered plants and animal products, meanwhile the men hunted. (McKay, Pg.13) Age was also a key factor in the division of labor in their society. Being elderly or a child would result in different task that would generally be easier because of the lack of strength. Unlike the Paleolithic era, in the Neolithic era Social hierarchies mainly came about as a result of plow agricultural society in both gender relations and division of labor.

The economic, social, and religious roles of women changed between the Paleolithic and Neolithic time periods. During the Paleolithic Age, women and men had equal position in society. They both helped in the raising of children and the act of obtaining food for their families. The role of women would soon change for the worse in the Neolithic time period. They were left with little social, economic, and religious status, and the large burden of raising children almost singlehandedly.

Throughout human history, nearly every single society has been male dominated. From the first societies formed during the Neolithic revolution in 8000 b.c.e., to the developed countries and societies of the present day, it has simply been the role of men to protect and provide for the women of their community. Nearly every ancient civilization was governed by men - they began as the hunters and caretakers of their female counterparts, than organized and governed communities and cities; so, why would ancient Sumerian society be any different? It wasn't; ancient sumerian society, like most other ancient societies, was exclusively male dominated. The men in this society had many more rights and privileges than their female counterparts, they

Though not much is known about pre-historic man or woman, I have to guess that the struggle to stay alive alone must have taken all of early man’s time both day and night. Based on this thought, it is hard for me to imagine how roles outside the main task of staying alive would have been divided by gender. Women and men both probably foraged for edible foods and probably hunted together in pairs I would guess. Since groups were small I imagine roles were shared equally. As the groups became larger, more organized and more advanced in agriculture, gender roles probably became more prominent. In early times, a woman’s primary role became childbearing and keeping the home environment, whether it be in a cave, mud hut or other structure.