Role of Gender in the Book of Genesis and Theogony. Essay

When you think of male dominance what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Do you think of a wife obeying her husband, do you think about children obeying their fathers, how about men dominating in sports, society’s, or groups and taking charge of business meetings? When it comes to male dominance several ideas can go through your mind. Would you have thought outside the box and thought about servants or prostitutes? The Amish society and the Medieval Iceland sagas are greatly like the Male domination roles, females submitting to their husbands or masters in this case. Males being the dominate, where the female submits.

In The Bible’s Genesis book two, the utopia of the Garden of Eden is set up for Man and is described throughout the text. Eden is developed as a Utopia for the man God created. The Bible states that “the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed,” (Genesis 2:8). “God formed every animal” as a “helper” for man, but none of these helpers could fit the role of a partner for man (Genesis 2:18-19). Thus, a woman was created as a companion for man after the creation of everything else in the Garden of Eden. This demonstrates that this utopia may not be as perfect for a woman as it is for a man; women were somewhat of an afterthought for this utopia.

Gender roles play a major part in interpreting plays and poems. From the Early Modern English period to the 18th century and Enlightenment to present day gender roles and how they are viewed have changed. In the first piece woman were viewed as less than men and had to maneuver around to please men. As time progresses, the second piece shows how gender roles become more equal in life. This changes through time and is shown when you read Twelfth Night by Shakespeare and "A Nocturnal Reverie" by Anne Finch.

Does gender affect how much authority one has over another? In what ways are the male gender superior in relation to “The Homeric Hymn to Demeter”? The hymn is often viewed as an explanation of how the seasons came to be. However, many overall themes can derive from the myth. It tells the story of Persephone, goddess of spring, taken against her will by Hades. Her grieving mother, Demeter, goes through great lengths to be reunited with her beloved daughter. Throughout the story a recurring theme can be seen through the divide in power between male and female.

The Theogony of Hesiod discusses about anything. It discusses about the “birth of gods/goddesses.” The work of Hesiod presents how gods were created and the consolidation of the powers of gods as a fight that occur between sons and fathers as well as between female birth and male counterparts. In the Theogony, Hesiod demonstrates very clear biasness for the winner of the struggle of fathers and sons, for instance male sky-god Zeus while at the same time showing biasness of males against women (Caldwell, 1987). The distortion or slanting of other sections of the stories is done by Hesiod mainly to make the powers of male and Zeus of the brute force to appear very good while at the same time making other powers of female concentrated much on

All ancient societies treated women as the inferior gender. It has been historically shown that in the ancient world, men were the leaders, heroes, and kings, and women served primarily as companions, helpers, and child-bearers. In the Old Testament and throughout ancient Greek literature, there is a constant theme of male superiority that cannot be ignored. Men did not believe that women were capable of existing as anything other than the typical “housewife;” it was unthinkable that a woman would actually need an education, let alone earn a living. Rarely was a woman seen

Throughout the Anglo-Saxon and renaissance period the literatures written really portrayed how life was during those times. Each stories settled upon the basic role of each gender, the man was the main focus while the women were led to be side characters. The different but same roles that were placed on each gender set an example on how each were displayed and what kind of character were to be shown. Evan though the similarities each sex had their characters are vastly different. In these literatures we can see how sex was interpreted in the Anglo-Saxon and Renaissance age.

Though the New Testament is essential to developing one’s Christian faith, the Old Testament is full of godly men and women whose examples Christians should follow, as well as not-so-obedient individuals who serve as warnings of what not to do. Among the most famous of Old Testament characters are Joshua, son of Nun, and Saul, the first king of Israel. Both men were chosen by God to lead His people and succeeded godly leaders, Moses and Samuel, respectively. Yet where one man fell so far from God that his kingdom was taken away from him, the other provided such excellent leadership that Israel followed God his entire life and was able to seize the Promised Land.

There exists today an abundance of literature investigating and arguing the historical and modern day impacts of gender constructs within religion. So why is it so important for us to analyse the links between religion and gender? As Ursula King argues, it is important to study religion and gender as interlocking analogues as opposed to separate objective categories, as the dynamics of gender patterns are so deeply imbedded into major institutionalised world religions that each of the two categories cannot simply be objectively studied without the understanding of the intersection of the other.

This article focusses its topic on the “nakedness” in the story Genesis and how it correlates hand-and-hand with gender roles. Adam was ignorant to the meaning of being nude when he was alone, but now that a woman has arrived he is self-conscious and embarrassed about this fact. Implying in-between the lines that Eve is the soul reason for this ill-manner that is taking over the righteous Adam; being that she had eaten from the tree of knowledge. After sharing this knowledge with Adam, he is now tainted and corrupted. Adam chose to put the blame entirely on Eve, instead of owning up to his decision and being a real “man.” It was his choice to eat the apple, and now that the consequences are taking their toll he wants to disguise himself as

Men believed women were inferior. Men took charge of everything while women took a backup role. It was commonly thought that a woman’s sole role was to birth

When we speak of men and women, what usually comes to mind? Most of the time, society sees men as the head and the lead provider, whereas the woman represents a lesser being than men, being labeled as inferior and only exist of having the sole purpose of caring for the family/household and the offspring(s). This concept can be traced back to the ancient Greek, where the terms Polis and Oikos essentially defined both genders. Polis is described as the city state and how the city functioned, whereas Oikos is seen as the family and how the household functions. When looking at both Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus the King, we can see characters that share and conflict with the idea of these two concepts. The characters, Antigone, Creon, and Oedipus all began to start getting involved in a complex web of events relating to the concept of both oikos and polis, and how throughout the story, each whom then threatens the existence or stability of one of the other of these spheres, by neglecting or rejecting outright their respective claims, rules and duties.

May we say that by narrating the creation story, our informant has attempted to create an alternative construction of power and agency against the dominant gender ideology that tends to deny a woman power or agency? By insisting that their common source of power is Allah, she skillfully employs her narrative in creating her space yet remained loyal to the dominant gender ideology of her community. She acknowledges her subordination to her husband, and at the same time claimed her own space as a minor malik. She also asserts that she is a partner in their endeavors of cultivation, which reflects her ownership of agency within the structure of subordination. She pointed out that “the Quran says that a wife should be obedient to her husband,

When individuals speak of God, many, atheists and theologians included, address the Divine One with male pronouns never varying from that name. But why? Is it because God is truly male or is it out of cultural convince to think that God is male? The exclusive male representation of God in public and private is the result of the western ideal of gender dualism that established the myth that associated the traits of reason and power with males and traits of desire and passivity with females (108). Therefore, when addressing God as the Creator it seems only “natural” for God to be male because as Creator he possessed reason to create everything. As a result, all-male verbal depictions and visual representations of God have created the general assumption that maleness and divinity are related if not the same (98). However, according to Elizabeth Johnson, this limited representation of God only perpetuates the unequal relation between women and men contrary to God’s desires and reality (97). To address this err feminist theology has developed, encouraging women and men to give other names to God in order to begin to dismantle the inequality that exists contrary to God’s desires. Feminist theology, Johnson notes, recognizes that Christianity’s androcentrism has resulted in reducing the living God to an idol, justifying the total rule of men in society and the church, and alienating women from their spiritual growth.

In the book of Genesis, the Lord breaks down his method of creating man and woman. As we all know, woman was taken from the rib of a man. This is a representation of equality and support. If it was intended for the woman to be of a different role, I believe, women would have been made from a different part of the body. She was not taken from his foot so that she might be crushed underneath his heels of bitterness; nor was she taken from his head as a representation to show that she rules over him. She was not taken from the hand so that she can continually fill the position of waiting upon him.