"Yes, I am fond of history."

"Yes, I am fond of history."

"I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing

that does not either vex or weary me.

The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page;

the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all -- it is very tiresome:"

Catherine Morland, in Northhangar Abbey (1803),    by Jane Austen

Gender roles and relations

Family and kinship

Racial and ethnic constructions

Social and economic classes

NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION

•Authority was based on family relationships.•Gender roles were more flexible, but most cultures has some sort of division.•Men took leadership roles.•Women responsible for gathering.•Later, women were probably the first to plant seeds .•Both men and women made tools.•As people settled, women remained high in social status controlling crops planted and sharing them.•Women had children at more frequent intervals and they began to spin and weave…WHY NOT MEN?•Men began to take over agricultural jobs and patriarchal system began to develop.

•Had reverence for females through fertility statues•Social inequality grew due to slavery and specialization•Women were sometimes shamans•Marriages were frequently to men at least 10 years older •Laws were set up to pass down property to heirs

Cult of the Great Mother Goddess worshipped in thisperiod. Artemis/Diana fromEphesus

The earth tied to the fertility ofcrops and animals

HATSHEPSUT as pharaoh and after. It is TOUGH to be queen!

Women in Egypt were less repressed thanin Mesopotamia….in the upper-class at least.

“Hold her back from mastery.” (a patriarchal statement from Egypt)

Husbands needed to be sure the children were theirs, so laws were passed that women HAD to be virgins at marriage. Laws were passed against adultery.

Later, men began to veil their wives to protect her honor which was linked withher sexuality. Men’s honor was linked to their job or position in society.

Legally, a woman became subject to her husband with widows being the only womenallowed to control property.

Eventually, the emphasis was on the role of the male deity over the female oncewriting was invented. Female goddesses became less important.

•Family arrangements became more arranged.•Philosophies were used to formulate ideas about men’s and women’s qualities and roles.•Female infanticide became more common.•Laws were passed restricting women in certain stages of life such as widowhood.•Women viewed as necessary but inferior.

•Women increasingly secluded from society. •Cultures became patrilocal.•Women were trained to be wives and mothers.•Families were the basis for a man’s place in the world. • A woman’s location determined her place.

•Women were regarded as capable of achieving spiritual goals.•Citizenship was for free males not women or slaves.•social status was determined by the land a person held.•Lower class women suffered less inequality than their upper-class sisters.

•People were expected to marry with few exceptions.•The stability of the family determined if the armies won battles.•Patriarchal family structure.•Slavery continued and grew in number in some areas.

•In China, women were never on the official list of her birth family.

•In Confucianism, the most important concept of li was the parent/child (son) relationship.

Spartan women had more freedom, because the men were in the barracks. They ran businesses, managed slaves and owned property.

Paterfamilias in Rome was a male-dominated family structure.Social classes: patricians = upper-class; plebeians = free farmers; had a merchantclass; slaves

Indian Mauryan/Gupta caste membership was determined by birthStatus of women declined during the Gupta because of the increased emphasis on inheritance of property. The ritual of Sati for wealthy women was instituted.

•Centralization led to greater gender distinctions.

•Women were taken by conquerors from prominent families as symbols of their conquest.

•Special sections of the house were set aside for women as harim/harem or “forbidden area.” Seclusion and veiling were based on rank.

•Female religious communities (convents). The worship of female saints.

•Hereditary monarchies sometimes had individual women rule, however, it was often in the name of a son or husband.

Even though the system in Arabia was patriarchal, women enjoyed rights notalways given in other lands. Could inherit property; own a business (Khadijah); divorce husbands

The Qur’an outlawed female infanticide, emphasized that all people were equalbefore Allah. Dowries were to go directly to the brides. At first, in early Islam, women prayed and attended ceremonies in public.

Muhammad’s youngest wife, Aisha, even led troops into battle.

With the arrival of slaves, and the influence of lands conquered, Muslims began toveil and seclude women. Shari’a expanded concept of seclusion, so unlike Khadija, women couldn’t hold property, run a business, etc.

Mohammed and his wife Aisha freeing the daughter of a tribal chief. From the Siyer-i Nebi. In the Topkapi Palace Library, Istanbul.

In China, the Tang/Song dynasties begin the custom of footbinding.Neo-Confucianist doctrines about female subordination become stronger in theSong dynasty.

Women were increasingly secluded; evenin peasant homes.

Widows were forbidden to remarry.

Empress Wu stressed the family unit as the basic unit of society focusing on loyalty and obedience. (Confucian values)

She took power and stressed the loyaltyowed to one’s mother (Confucian values), and the Buddhist ideas of the godlike ruler to build up her power.

Murasaki Shikibu author of Tale of GenjiAs with most Heian women, we do not know her real name.

In Japan women played a significantpublic role, but lost position with thegrowing power of the Shogunate.

Daughters were more valuable than sonsdue to the marital political arrangementsin the upper class.

Husbands often went to live with their wives families.

Sei Shonagan author of the Pillowbook

The emperor of Japan traced hisancestry to Amaterasu the sun goddess.

Women could be religious leaders in Shinto.

With the arrival of Buddhism, women became nuns.

Wives of samurai managed the estates of their husbands when they were away evenfighting if necessary.

Poor women were expected to be workers inagriculture or divers for ocean products such as seaweed.

Aztec and Inca

• Aztecs had slaves that were household servants.

• women who died in childbirth received honor as a warrior

• upper-class boys and girls received formal schooling

• large gap between rich and poor

• smaller merchant class and fewer craftsmen than Aztecs

• virgin women were selected to serve the Inca and his family who had the status of gods

• the line of descent was through the mothers for girls and boys from the father

• women were seen as links to the earth deities, so they were the ones to put seeds in the ground while men dug the holes

MEDIEVAL EUROPE•Women could inherit estates and take oaths of vassalage and they were expected todefend the estates. At first, the king’s wife was in charge of the kingdom’s finances just like she was of thehousehold. Women were the caregivers who studied herbs and remedies.•Primogeniture trickled down to all levels of society.•Convents offered women protection and opportunities for leadership as abbesses.Worship of female saints, such as Mary, became important.•Men cleared land, plowed and took care of large animals. Women took care of smallanimals, the spinning and food prep.•Widows were not restricted as in other places, and women were often employed in theproduction of trade products.

AFRICA

Very Diverse….but many cultures were matrilineal and had systems of marriage that involved a bride-price rather than a dowry. Thus, girls were seen as a source ofwealth rather than a drain on their families.

Many cultures practiced polygamy with families living in compounds where each wifehad her own house, cattle, fields and property.

The division of labor was quite varied, but in most areas women were responsible for the growing, processing and even selling of crops.

In some kingdoms there was the position of “Mother of the King” who was a joint rulerwith certain duties.

Both men and women acted as priests and honored male and female gods/spirits.

Ethiopian Christian culture and Islamic regions excluded women from positions of leadership.

New international contacts led to new ethnicities.

Traditional gender patterns disrupted with new patterns formed.

Concepts of race and status developed.

“Need” for consumer goods!Intellectual movements“An eloquent woman is never chaste.”

New international contacts led to new ethnicities and to new ideas of racial hierarchies.

In Africa, 2/3rds of the slaves taken were male which reinforced or created the idea of polygamy.

Mestizos, Mulattos

Traditional gender patterns disrupted with new patterns formed.

Men were the early travelers, and laws were passed against “racial mixing.” miscengenation

This to changes in religious practices, languages, and family patterns.

So many men left that women were left competing for the few men available in Europe.

“Need” for consumer goods!

Male labor needed in large numbers as a workforce on plantations.

Women’s roles in upper-class homes become consumption rather thanproduction.

Intellectual movements“An eloquent woman is never chaste.”

Protestant women didn’t learn to write, because it was seen as dangerous.

Educated women always viewed as suspect in character.

The home was “A haven in a heartless world.”A low point for women around the world.

A time of “equality of misery.” Both men and women living in a poor state compounded by industrialization and imperialism with most men and women leftback. It was more about class structure than gender structure.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Were our state a pure democracy, there would still beexcluded from our deliberation women, who, to prevent the deprivation of moralsand ambiguity of issues, should not mix promiscuously in gatherings of men.”

“Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government.” Mary Wollstonecraft

And so it begins, the push for rights and suffrage!

Political Revolutions

Women’s Movements

Women in factories were paid less for less skilled labor.

Women were mainly unmarried which led to sexual exploitation and concerns about THEIR morality and respectability!!!

In Japan and Latin America

Women were to stay home to be “Good wives and wise mothers.”

At home, women still had to work to survive, but the governments didn’t count it as real work as it was“housekeeping.”

Men frequently left home in Latin America to seek workleaving women to continue subsistence farming.

Marianismo and machismo

Scientific discoveries about women used to justifylimits on their education.

Women who accomplished anything intellectual were seenas having “transcended their sex.”

China: “She who is unskilled in arts and literature isa virtuous woman.”

Japan: “To cultivate women’s skills would be harmful.”

Women’s Movements

“The woman question.”

Families

Marriage Patterns

Political and LegalDevelopments

Independence Movements

Work Patterns

Families: smaller; access to birth control; by 1950’s peopleno longer saw big families as necessary for survival inIndustrialized countries.

Size of families limited by governments.

Marriage patterns changed and declined in industrializedareas.

Work Patterns: factory workers remain mainly female along With many children.

Some parts of the world women make up very little of the workforce except for highly trained professionals in sexsegregated societies.

Independence Movements:

Single women are taxed by colonial powers for leaving home tofind work which caused them to join movements.

Women participate in every way.

After independence, women begin to get some power which was limited.

“Women’s issues” such as access to birth control or familyviolence were not considered important by Marxist leaders.

Great quote!

1st

PrimeMinisterofIsrael

Margaret ThatcherUnited Kingdom

Benazir BhuttoPakistan

Francis Perkins1st Female in USACabinet

Indira GandhiIndia

Bronze

Nazi’s Mother’sCross

Awarded forhaving4-5 babies

Der DeutschenMutter

World War II

China’s one child policy

Most posters todayare of girls.

Civil Rights Leaders

Rosa

Rosa Parks

You’ve come along way, Baby!