St. Augustine On Women Research Paper

women have made an exceedingly great impact on the world’s economical, social, and political spectrum. However, women are still deemed inferior to men in past and present cultures. The inferiority of women has been portrayed through various avenues such as literature and written works. The Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses’ women characters are three perfect depictions of how women in today’s society are dominated, disregarded, and discredited.

For centuries women, in many cultures women have been fighting for their rights and women equality, politically, socially and for their own personal reasons. As women have been fighting for equality, politically, socially and personally, they had no importance in these platforms in Greece. Athenian woman had very view rights and were controlled by a male relative. Even though ancient Athens was in a state of democracy, women were powerless to vote, and do any political activity. It was disgraceful for a woman to be brave and express a role of men. This essay will go more in depth about Athenian women and how they were treated.

As the millenniums pass and years go by, the world continues to evolve each day. Across the world, in every society, men and women have specific roles that they carry out. During ancient times, in most cultures, women were inferior to men. This is still true in many countries today. It has taken American women many centuries to have gained the rights and privileges they have today. Women have made many immense achievements, fought for their rights and stood up for what they believed in during the past century. It is very important to understand the role of women in history because they have played an imperative part of how each society functioned. In Classical Athens, women and men were citizens however men were superior to the women.

Women have played important roles throughout history. They have been responsible for the rise and fall of nations, sustaining families, and have been the focal point of worship in ancient religions. Moving forward in history, women's roles have continually changed. Their status as matriarchs changed as the more advanced ancient civilizations rose. The patriarchal societies of ancient Greece and Rome viewed women differently from some societies of past eras. The study of the economic and political status of women, their rights, and their contributions to both these ancient societies reveals how views change throughout history.

Young Augustine weeps for the woman who dies for her love, as an older Augustine weeps over his complete ignorance and incontinence. Young Augustine is ignorant of the presence of God in his life, and is compelled not to weep for his own spiritual distance from God, but instead for a tragedy that, in the mind of the older Augustine, is incomparable to the tragedy of being without God. The older Augustine is compelled by his advanced knowledge of the Lord’s proximity to lament his previous lack of control over his habits, proclaiming “I had no love for you and ‘committed fornication against you’ (Ps. 72:27); and in my fornications, I heard all round me the cries ‘Well done, well done’ (Ps. 34:21; 39:16) … I abandoned you to pursue the lowest things of your creation.” (Conf. 16). This reveals that Young Augustine lives an entirely habitual life, never thinking of God or his importance, instead concerned with material and worldly concerns such as reputation and honor. This state of pure habit does not leave space for Young Augustine to have continence, and leaves him to act out his life according to passion and emotions.

This essay will examine documents about the woman in Rome and their position politically, socially, and religiously. Woman began to receive more rights and are recognized as equals as time progresses in Rome.

Women form an important part of each society, however their role and importance to its function are often times overlooked. Society is/was organized and directed by men. All of the most important positions and purposes within it`s routine were filled by males. This societal organization is often times reflected in many pieces of literature of various time periods, however there are texts in which contrary to the patriarchal society models, women are given substantial importance within the plot. Homer`s The Odyssey, Heart of Darnkness by Joseph Conrad and Aeschylus`s Oresteia each demonstrate or conceal female importance in a given society.

Elizabeth Spelman in Woman as Body - Ancient and Contemporary Views addresses how ancient philosophers, specifically Plato, viewed women in society and how that view is impacting the role of women in modern times. At surface value, it seems as if Spelman is placing the blame for the contemporary view of women as nothing more than body on Plato’s advocated ideas of dualism, which equates, most simply, that women are inferior to men. But after completing Spelman’s complete journal, I think that the more pressing problem outlined in Spelman’s argument is how the oppression of women is directly connected to the oppression of groups based on race, class, ability and a variety of other things. Many people approach the problems of sexism separating women from these other groups, but in reality women are apart of all of these groups and therefore have to undergo two or more forms of intertwining oppression.

This demonstrates to which extent women were autonomous and allowed to make their own decisions. In fact the independence that a Spartan woman had allowed her to divorce her husband if he was unable to give her children. In contrast, in the Macedonian culture, women in the ruling class had a similar and even greater power in the society comparing to the women in Sparta. Just as in Sparta, women rule during the absence of men, they appear in public and even participate in public talking. The Macedonian culture women were recognized and respected. For instance, public announcements were made about women’s activities such as public talking. In addition, women in the Macedonian culture of Ptolemaic Egypt could choose under which contract they wanted to marry: The Greek contract required guardians, while the Egyptian did not. This freedom of choice supports the idea that women were independent and to some extent free just as in the Greek culture. In both of those cultures, women ran the society in the absence of men and were free. They could make their own decision and were autonomous. The women’s role in the society proves that those societies are coincidental.

Throughout history, society has often created division within gender roles and gender relations, typically at the expense of women. In Plato’s Republic, Plato devises his plausible ideal city, Kallipolis, which holds a very different notion of these gender roles and relations from the standard held in the early ages. It is quite progressive as both, men and women, are able to uphold the same positions at work and have access to the same education. This concept enhances and strengthens the unity of Plato’s ideal just city. Unfortunately, this progressiveness is cut short as Plato’s subtle misogyny comes into play – nonetheless, this does not interfere with the general structure of Kallipolis. Through analyzing Plato’s account on gender roles and gender relations with context of his ideal society, one is able to see that Plato’s subtle misogyny does not greatly affect the outcome of his city.

Women in classical Athens could not have had an extremely enjoyable experience, if we rely on literary sources concerning the roles of women within the Greek polis. The so-called Athenian democracy only benefited a fraction of the entire population. At least half of this population was female, yet women seem to have had very little influence and few official civic rights. `The position of women...is a subject which has provoked much controversy.'

Plato thought that citizens of the Republic must be willing to strip away their material ornaments and consider more than their bodies when deciding what is good and just. Socrates continues that, if stripped of bodily differences, a woman (clothed in 'virtue') possesses the same quality of soul as a man. Thus she should possess the same role in the Republic: "there is no practice of a city's governors which belongs to woman because she's woman, or to man because he's man; but the natures are scattered alike along both animals" (455d). Therefore Plato does not just believe that women can play a vital role in his utopian society, he believes that women have the capacity to rule as guardians. He does maintain however that as with men it is the very best women who have the capacity to rule as guardians in his society.

It wasn’t until the Greek and Roman empires that gender roles in society really started to widen the gap between males and females. The combination of a growing belief of women as servants and the impact of mythology on culture culminated in a “gender specific code of conduct” (Evans). In Greek mythology (coincidentally written by men), the Hesiod’s Theogony (The Birth of the Gods) played a tremendous role in the status of man and woman (Mason). In Theogony (The Birth of the Gods), Prometheus lives in a world of only men where life was great. There was no work and all leisure. Prometheus makes the Gods

Plato's suggestion that female guardians do everything male guardians do is a radical and revolutionary proposal in a time when women were viewed as property. However there are complexities and contradictions in the Platonic text on female equality. He makes obvious statements and allusions those women are more cowardly, less trustworthy, innately worse then men. In Book V, he emphasizes that women, as a class are equals to men in capacity, although on the whole, weaker in all pursuits. Plato's ideal society is inadequate for the emancipation of women from the standpoint of feminism today. His proposal is not in the interest of woman as a class whom he supposes to be depraved, but in the

For Plato, justice is a virtue establishing rational order. Meaning each part has to perform its appropriate role and to not interfere with the proper functioning of other parts. Plato makes and argument for equal opportunity for women. He believes in it, and even though women tend to be weaker than men from a physical standpoint, this should not prove that they aren’t being educated for the same socio-political functions that men are taught. While the body itself determines gender, it is