Womens roles in history?

Question:Remember way back in the day when women we considered Goddesses, it might be hard to imagine that the world was once like that but I did say waaaaaay back. We pretty much went from cherished pupils to unpriviledged beings.What changed? What in history caused this change?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Remember way back in the day when women we considered Goddesses, it might be hard to imagine that the world was once like that but I did say waaaaaay back. We pretty much went from cherished pupils to unpriviledged beings.What changed? What in history caused this change?

The worship of goddesses and the way mortal women were viewed do not have much to do with each other. Societies in which goddesses are still worshipped today do not noticeably treat women better. India for instance is mainly Hindu, and they worship many powerful goddesses, but in India there is female infanticide, child marriage, dowry murders, and women generally do not have high status.

There have been claims made that there were matriarchal societies in the past, but nobody has ever been able to come up with any convincing evidence that such societies ever existed.

For most of the history of the human race, we were hunter-gatherers, and although we cannot say for sure that hunter-gatherers then were like they are now, if you look at the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies that exist in the world today, women are not equals to men in those societies. men always hold the positions of power and run the tribe. And in primitive agricultural societies, although it is women who do most of the work, it is men who run things.

In all societies, women have generally had fewer rights than men, though in some their position has been better than others. Ancient Egyptian women for instance had more rights than Greek or Roman women, though you could hardly call them equal with men. It is simply not true, as suggested in a comment above, that Christianity led to a decline in the status of women. On the contrary, women were among the most eager of the early converts to christianity, because it gave more consideration to women rather than less. During the conversion of Pagan europe, there are many cases of Pagan kings being converted because they were persauded to do so by their Christian wives.

In the medieval period, women generally had more rights than they had during the classical period, but they were still not viewed as equal to men. throughout the medieval and early modern period, women's role in production was vital to the economy, but they still were not considered the equals of men. The cult of Chivalry, in which a knight was supposed to subject himself to a lady (not his wife) and do her bidding, was an elaborate game played by members of the nobility which didn't really have any effect on woman's role in society in general.

Although women in general have had fewer opportunities than men to get an education, there have always been educated women throughout history. In ancient Greece there were women poets, the most famous being Sappho, and women philosophers, like Aspasia, the wife of Pericles, and Hypatia. throughout the medieval period there were some women who were highly educated, especially nuns, some of whom were also philosophers, like Hildegarde of Bingen, Catherine of Sienn and Dame julian of Norwich. Christine de Pisan, in the 14th century, was the first professional woman writer. And in the far east women writers flourished too, the japanese writer Mursaki Shibiku produced The Tale of Genji in around the year 1000, which is considered to be the world's first real novel.

It is not true, as a comment above suggests, that women in the early modern period were given 'the sole value of reproduction.' On the contrary, women had a vital role to play as producers in society at that time. Housewives were expected to possess a wide range of skills and to be able to cook and preserve food, brew ale (which was drunk instead of water), make their own cheese and butter, make their own candles, and spend a lot of their time spinning wool and flax into thread. They were expected to act as the family doctors as well, and have a good knowledge of medicine and first aid. Household manuals even contained instructions for setting broken bones (and there were still some professional women doctors practicising at this time). The worlds of home and work still overlapped to a large extent at this time, and women would often produce items both for home use and for sale. Also women whose husbands were in trade were generally involved in the family business, whatever it might be, and widows sometimes continued to run the business after their husbands died. Women whose husbands were landowners were expected to run the estate while their husbands were away, as they often were at court or going to war. A great deal more was expected of women than simply reproducing.

The closest we have ever come to complete equality is modern western society. And even here I doubt we will ever have complete equality. I think men will always predominate in leadership roles because more men are interested in taking on those roles. And men are always going to be bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And they don't get pregnant. it is nature, rather than civilisation, that has given men the upper hand. and that's why I don't believe that there ever was a time when women were held in particularly high esteem. The position of women in society has fluctuated over the centuries, it is not a case of either steady progress or steady decline. That is something that people should be aware of. Because rights can be given, and rights can be taken away.

Limiting the history of Feminism to the history of the modern Feminist Movement has been criticised by some authors as ignoring women's opposition to patriarchy over the course of thousands of years.For example, Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, put forth ideals we now recognize as feminist, as an outgrowth of the enlightenment values espoused in the late 18th, early 19th centuries. Although some find the use of the term feminist prior to its coinage (sometime around 1880) "anachronistic", others prefer to see "feminism" as a self-conscious and systematic ideology beginning in the late eighteenth century. in the mid 1980s Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldua, Bell Hooks, Chela Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other feminists of color, called for a new subjectivity in feminist voice. They sought to negotiate prominent space within feminist thought for consideration of race related subjectivities. This focus on the intersection between race and gender remained prominent through the Hill-Thomas hearings, but began to shift with the Freedom Ride 1992. This drive to register voters in poor minority communities was surrounded with rhetoric that focused on rallying young feminists. For many, the rallying of the young is the emphasis that has stuck within third wave feminism.Women during the Renaissance era were not allowed to experience the rebirth of culture in the same way the majority of men did. Called Renaissance-men, men embraced humanism, and the self-cultivation of the individual through education. Humanists such as Vives and Agricola argued that aristocratic women at least required education; Roger Ascham educated Elizabeth I, and she not only read Latin and Greek but wrote occasional poems, such as On Monsieur’s Departure, that are still anthologized. However, women who were exceptionally accomplished were described as manly or called witches. Queen Elizabeth I was described as having talent without a woman’s weakness, industry with a man’s perseverance, and the body of a weak and feeble woman, but with the heart and stomach of a king. The only way she could be seen as a good ruler was for her to be described with manly qualities. Being a powerful and successful woman during the Renaissance, like Queen Elizabeth I meant in some ways being male, a perception that unfortunately gravely limited women’s potential as women.Women were given the sole role and social value of reproduction.This gender role defined a woman's main identity and purpose in life. The ancient philosopher Socrates was well-known as an exemplar to the Renaissance humanists as their role model for the pursuit of wisdom in many subjects. Surprisingly, Socrates has said that the only reason he puts up with his wife, Xanthippe, was because she bore him sons, in the same way one puts up with the noise of geese because they produce eggs and chicks. This analogy from the revered Socrates only propelled the claim that a woman's sole role was to reproduce.

Marriage during the Renaissance was what defined a woman. She was who she married. When unmarried, a woman was the property of her father, and once married, she became the property of her husband. She had few rights, except for any privileges her husband or father gave her. Married women had to obey their husbands and were expected to be chaste, obedient, pleasant, gentle, submissive, and, unless sweet-spoken, silent

You're forgetting that they also weren't taken seriously and their opinions and concerns were deemed senseless babble. In patriarchal societies women have always been "unpriviledged beings". It's idealistic to view the past as a time when women were "goddesses" and "cherished pupils". I don't know what they were pupils of anyway. Remember, women were not educated like the men. There was no need to educate them since there were no prospects for them except to be someone's wive.

What causes change in the treatment of women? Many people say economics causes the greatest societal changes. For example, people attribute the success of the feminist movement not to feminist activism, but to a simple need to extract more labor for the workforce. Since women were potential labor sources, they were then allowed to enter the workforce, since it had become necessary to use them (not because of civil rights).

It's difficult to answer this, because you and I do not share the same opinion regarding the historical status of women. I suppose you would have to define the characteristics of the "goddess" versus what is lacking in the "unpriveleged being" in order for me to give a better attempt at explaining when/why the change took place.

(I also feel that perhaps you are referring to only a specific class of women. Most people in the distant past were peasants, so chivalry was not actually as prominent among the general population as people say. If you are referring to this, the fall of feudalism led to the fall of chivalry. With the fall of the ways of governing and reorganizing of the classes, chivalry became a less integral part of the society, so it faded.)

A good question but the answer is complex. Yes, back in the ancient world, society was more matriarchal , the supreme gods were in fact goddesses and women had status and power which was gradually eroded only to be nuked altogether by the rise of the monotheistic male -centred religions, Christianity & Islam, a situation from which we are still trying to rise above.
There is an excellent book 'The First Sex" by Elizabeth Gould Davis which should be available from a good library which will explain it all for you. It seeks to give woman her rightful place in history, repudiating 2,000 years of male dominance and propaganda.