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This Source Discusses Some Of The Traditional Gender Differences

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This source discusses some of the traditional gender differences between men and women in the Japanese and Chinese cultures. In early Chinese and Japanese culture the idea of balance was key. Characteristics tending to be assigned to a specific gender, but one was not necessarily seen as better than another. The qualities where simply different. In both China and Japan women’s work remained largely domestic, such as weaving, and men plowed the fields.
The traditional Japanese religion of Shintoism lead to the high status of women in early Japanese culture. The Japanese sun goddess (to whom all emperors claimed ancestry) was greatly revered for her mystical powers, and many female sovereigns where also thought to have great powers. …show more content…

It discusses traditional gender roles in Japan and how they have evolved (largely due to religious influence, but political reasons as well). As with Reese, it does not provide many specific examples of gender expectations and roles, but offers a more generalized view of women’s place in society.

This chapter offers a brief, though insightful, overview of Iroquois history, and traditional beliefs and societal structure. Men and women worked together to survive, men hunting or fishing and when working the fields and foraging. Families lived together in longhouse and the eldest female of a line was the dominant figure within the longhouse. Although, ideally, a husband would live with his wife’s family, it seems that did not always occur. Divorce was common, and often fathers did not live in the same longhouse as their children. Children often shared a close relationship to their fathers, however, it was often their mother and an uncle who raised the children. Much of the information in this book is not relevant to my topic. This book focuses on the wrong time period for my research, and does not cover the subject I am interested in great depth. It does, however, offer a good starting point for understanding traditional Iroquois culture and does expand on some basic gender roles and expectations I can make use of.

This source details the roles of women throughout ancient Greek and Roman

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