Women's Roles In Western History

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.

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

The explorers were men, the landholders and merchants, the political leader’s men, the military figures men. The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status.”

During the Enlightenment and Revolution era, women did not have equal rights like men. All over the world women were expected to do certain things and act a certain way while not doing others. A woman is mocked and ridiculed if she does not follow these standards.Women’s roles were based around duty and obligations; thus, their rights were not political, gleaning from their roles as housewives (Give Me Liberty!, 242). The roles of women between the 16th to the 18th centuries were mainly to be housewives and were seen inferior compared to men. Throughout time, they gained a greater variety of job opportunities as well as increased education, and the women’s roles still did not carry the same weight as the men’s.

Since the early times, women were pictured as “intellectually inferior to men but also a major source of temptation and evil” as well as the weaker sex (WIC). For example, Pandora, in Greek mythology, was a woman who opened a forbidden box which then unleashed sin, plagues, and unhappiness into the world. In the early 19th century, women were only allowed to work in factories or, otherwise, stayed at home and did domestic work; the only professions that was acceptable for them to do was to become a teacher or a writer. In the 1920’s, women gained the right to vote. Throughout history, there has been many issues between the male and female genders, most significantly with the female gender, but, the rights of women have soared since the early times of history.

Publication of books and periodical revealed to the public the problems that women endured within their homes, education, labor, and health. In a male dominant society, men premeditated what roles women should play at home. Women were perceived as weaker than men, unable to think for themselves and their opinions were view as useless. Male dominating view of a woman’s role was to have no other aspirations but to take care of her husband, family and home.

In her article titled, “Woman, Culture and Society,” Michelle Rosaldo argues that there is, “A universal asymmetry in cultural evolution of the sexes” (p.17). While women may be influential and powerful, they are never awarded the same authority as men. This asymmetry can largely be attributed to various dimensions of human’s social structure including domestic and public orientation, authority, nature and culture and personality. Firstly, in regards to domestic and public orientations, Rosaldo asserts that, due to child rearing, women are generally confined to the domestic sphere while men have the freedom and time to pursue activities in the public sphere. Through an analysis of domestic and public orientations, Rosaldo suggests that women

  Women were once little more than slaves to their male "betters." Some women might have been respected, but their places were limited to roles as wives and mothers. They might rule a home, but were not believed intelligent enough for any other role. This chauvinistic attitude is well reflected in the novels Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, and Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad.

Women and men have had certain roles in society that were understood amongst them to be specified for their particular gender. Males were known to have the leading role as head of the house hold and the bread winner while the woman’s duty was to stay at home and take care of the house and children. While many people years ago deemed this way of life and practice to be the right and ethical thing to do, times have changed and so this kind of treatment towards a woman’s equality must be questioned. Even though times have changed, this mindset of a woman’s ability to be as good as a man has not completely gone away. In today’s society a woman contributes to the economy and her family as equally as that of a man. Therefore, women should share equal rights and opportunities as their gender counterparts.

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

Even though we say that women today should have equal rights amongst men, we still associate the word women to household activities than to men; therefore, making it just like the practice during the Anglo-Saxon period. Although, they differ in the way that today, there are already more opportunities for women to do in the society. There also equal treatment when it comes to working, wherein jobs that used to be for men only are now also open to women with potentials. Some survey shows that women of today are already known to have a higher rank than men. Some statistics show that there are also families wherein women work while men stay at home and does all the household works. Which shows that somehow, society did change its treatment towards

8). The traditional views of gender roles are indeed quite different from the modern views. The men in society are the bread-winners where as the women take care of the children and home. There are basic and common work roles, however in terms of behaviour and involvement there are gender role distinctions. The sex roles generally play out in modern society as well, some sex roles and stereotypes for girls are that they are “nonaggressive, nonathletic, emotionally expressive, tender, domestic, and nurturing. Boys on the other hand are “aggressive, value achievement, attain goals through conflict, and work towards monetary success” (Whicker and Kronenfeld, 1986; pp. 8). The males in the society are “emotionally anesthetised, aggressive, physically tough and daring, unwilling or unable to give nurturance to a child” (Lewis and Sussman, 1986; pp. 1). These traits are carried out by this particular gender mostly outside the society to demonstrate their strength. Those individuals who ignore to carry out these personality traits are seen as weak and unmanly. The women on the other hand are given the responsibility of looking after the family and are supposed to have the opposite personality traits. For instance a woman can show emotions but not outside of the family because of the shame that would bring to the

Throughout history, women have been seen in many different lights. From a woman’s perspective she is strong, smart, helpful and equal to men. In the eyes of men, she is seen as the weaker being, the housewife, and the caretaker. By looking at the following pieces of writing, one can see that through the centuries, women have struggled to break out of the mold that man had put her in and make themselves known in society as important.

Before examining particular societies, the general notions of patriarchy must be established. Generally, women were considered inferior to men, but each facet of society provides a distinctive insight into gender roles. A fundamental difference between the two genders was that the responsibility of a man was to be a member of the public, whereas the responsibility of a woman was to be in the home. Social norms defined men as “rulers, warriors, scholars, and heads of households” (Ways of the World 59). Even if a man had little

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.