Neolithic Gender Roles

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:

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.

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.

When thinking of gender roles in society, stereotypes generally come to mind. Throughout history these stereotypes have only proven to be true. Major historical events have had a huge impact on the way men and women are seen and treated. In this way, women have always been secondary to males and seen as the fragile counterparts whose job is to take care of the household and most importantly, be loyal to her husband no matter the circumstance. Gender roles throughout history have greatly influenced society. The slow progress of woman’s rights throughout humanities led to an explosion of woman’s rights throughout the 20th century and that trend will only continue on into the rest of the 21st century.

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.

Mesopotamia restrictions on female roles in society were more prominent than they were in Egypt. In Mesopotamia, men were of greater value in the hierarchy than the women were. The men were the ones who served in the military, built the walls that protected the city, served in governmental positions but men also did a majority of the agricultural jobs. The men protected the city-states and the women did not, which created a patriarchy in the civilization that was constantly at war. This created a divide in the rights of men and women both legally and social. Women was not defined by her personality but instead by her relationship with her husband. Men were seen as the head of the household, giving men of the lower classes more power even if

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.

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

As we know Agriculture Revolution started approximately ten thousand years ago. Ten thousand years ago humans did not have fancy cars, TV, laptops, nice clothing, or any other expensive material things for that matter. The first and only priority known to men and women was food (Giroud,1995). Before the first crops grown by man to produce wheat that started the farming innovations, there were hunter/gather roles for collecting food. The roles of a hunter was taken by the males (Miller,1985), and the role of gathers was taken by the females who also stayed at home to take care of the children’s. I believe the strength of men to hunt was the real reason that men held more power than women through time. After the power was gone to the men, it was hard for women to get it back, which is where the power struggle began for women. Even after things got easier to produce food, which could have been taken care off by a women to take back to power from males, but by then it was too late (Giroud,1995). The effects of back in the day are still passed down to this day. Men did undermined women; it was believed that women technically couldn’t do the same jobs as men because they are simply not capable of it. Some can say that it was a situation that took place a long time ago, but many still believe that some men still think men and women are not equal in today’s modern society. Believe it or not, hunters for males and gathers for females shaped what sex has the power in our society

From prehistory to 1450 CE, in many different and complex civilizations, religion has influenced the gender roles of many societies. From prehistory to 600 BCE, in Mesopotamia, women could own property, maintain their dowry, and even trade. However, from 600 BCE to 600 CE, in Rome, women were completely under the control of their paterfamilias. Than, from 600 to 1450 CE, in the Byzantine Empire, women were constrained to their homes, and when they went out, they had to wear veils over their faces. Religion influenced the gender roles of many societies and civilizations from prehistory to 1450 CE.

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

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.

Some aspects of the lifestyle ancient civilizations lived almost seem appalling or intolerable when compared to the very developed and carefully shaped the world inhabited today. One of these characteristics of previous societies that prove to be rather challenging to conceive in current times consists of the lack of rights, privileges, and equity women had. Society maintained this assumption of a man’s superiority up until the women’s rights movement of the early twentieth century; yet with the two sexes essentially equal in America today, imagining a restricted life as a female proves unfathomable. Looking back at the history of human kind, men almost always subdued women and treated them as property. When focusing on the first

of a man. Women were able to hold political positions, possess land, and overall enjoy a

In comparison with men, women didn’t have a lot of rights and freedom. Some argued that men and women were different species and that men were similar to gods and women were similar to animals. Men could vote but women couldn’t,