Neolithic Women

For thousands of years, men have dominated societies around the world. In most cultures, but especially in ancient times men considered women as secondary to themselves. Men viewed women as a possession and had ownership of them just as one would own a home or piece of property. Traditionally women were not permitted to receive an education but were expected to marry, have children, take care of the home and remain unseen by others. The women of the ancient Greek Minoan and Mycenaean cultures were allowed to hold nontraditional roles outside of the home and at times were viewed as being equal to their male counterparts yet men still considered women as a possession.

Women have been downgraded and mistreated because of their gender. From birth, Women and Men grew up with very different rules to follow. Men were raised to be the head of the house and do work for a living. Growing up as little girls, women were taught to raise their kids and make food for their families. “Strong family structures were necessary because the family was the basis for all other institutions. The government, church, and community all worked through the nuclear family unit.”(“Gender and

Since the beginning of time women have been considered inferior to men, which seem to proceed to affect everyday lives of all social beings in this world. Women have a disease, a disease that will prevent them for ever having the political drive to achieve political, social or economic opportunities men have. This "disease" is the need for independency and self-respect or the lack there of. This is what we have come to know as feminism. Feminism refers to the body of thought on the cause and nature of women's disadvantaged and subordinate position in society, and efforts to minimize and eliminate the subordination (Hughes, 2002:160). Understanding that the need for independency and self-respect is not a real disease,

In the world today, women have a say in what they want to do and things that they desire to do. Back in the day, before the 1800’s, women had to be submissive to their male counterparts and do according to what was required of them. In the end, this led to the demeaning of the woman and the concept that women were inferior to men. Even though this concept and perception changed, there have been some countries and regions of the world that have not yet recognized the equality that women deserve. Such areas do not allow women to vote, attend school, have a say in the community, and the women are at the mercy of their husbands, fathers or male superiors (Hartmann, Susan M).

This article from “The Real Truth about the Female” by Barbara Ehrenreich targets many beliefs that women were underestimated. The main theory suggested in this document is that, women had to follow the traditional duties. Early theories are being questioned as a result to women proving many things over the years that were often overlooked. Ehrenreich states in his article, “it does strongly suggest that in the Stone Age family, Dad-the-hunter was not the only provider.” There is a great amount of evidence that suggest the theory that women worked as hard as men. Adrienne Zihlman and Nancy Tanner stated “among surviving “hunting” peoples, most of the community’s calories—up to 70%—come from plant food patiently gathered by women.” This fact

The idea that men were stronger began during the hunting-gathering time, since men mostly went out hunting, while women stayed nearby by the house to care for children and gather plants. Biological factors made women more vulnerable at the time which only added onto the idea that women were less than their male counterparts. Men, considering they were not tied to their homes because of pregnancy, or the duties of a housewife, had more time to gain wealth and property through “pillage and force”, making them known as the more powerful figure in society (Richards and Saba).

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.

Today in society it can be agreed that women have indeed gained many rights that were not accessible to them 100 years before. Although, despite the mentality that men and women are treated equally there are still very many discrepancies between the treatment of genders. Many of which can be attributed to the expectations placed on the genders, gender roles between both genders, and women in the workplace. These issues have caused a great rift to form between the genders, a rift that has caused one gender to claim dominance over the other and this can develop a sense of inferiority by the submissive gender.

The earliest period, Paleolithic, was revolved around the use of hunting and gathering to produce a food supply that would sustain them and the few other nomads the hunters would travel with. It was normal for the nomad group to have both men and women. The role of hunting was completed by males mostly but women may have helped, If the women weren't hunting they were gathering which the food they found accounted for majority of their diet. As the periods switched into the Neolithic era which was now dependent on farming and the use of domesticated animals It allowed the population to grow majorly. While women were becoming pregnant and raising children it became socially acceptable for them to be given the

The men were in charge of the harder things that woman could not do, such as hunting, and fishing. (Littell

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

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

Amy, I agree with you that the division of labor between men and women in the Neolithic is based on the differences of their body types, not on cultural differences as it is based today. I also liked how you mentioned that women were the caretakers of the children and women tend to be better multitaskers then men, probably due to practice not an innate ability. Therefore, they would be better suited to watch the children while grinding grain then the men. In addition, they would have to breast feed the children and that is something that only women could do, although in today times men are trying to lactate, so even that is changing in our society.

Throughout history and today, we women are constant victims of stereotyping from our society. Certain “rules” have to be followed and certain “ideal” women images have to be kept. We are raised in a way to fill certain position where the society wants us to be and as a result, the opportunities are always limited for us and ideas of our importance in the society are diminishing. Even though women gained some independence, where women can work and take various position in society, the society’s idea of typical role of women never seem to change.

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.