Why Early Civilizations Failed in Gender Equality Essay Example
Y.Harrari in his book regarded the saying “men are stronger than women” as contrived statement. In pre-history women undertook a “burden” in which physical strength was indispensable, while men retained important but easy duties such as law and politics. Clearly there was no relationship of physical strength and social power. What about prominent aggression of men? No, war demands less aggression yet more disciplined approach. Majority of US population voted for a male president over his counter female dissident, who later lead to 11 billion cost alone from tourism in trade war with China. Whereas female prime minister, Germany chancellor, Angela Merkel dominated Europe’s politics for more than a decade and the country avoided 2008 global crisis with stable economy. The women’s role was so universal that, there was no “dead circle” that would blunt wo
...men’s advance in society. Although, America was isolated so many years, Aztecs or Mayas developed similar mindset and duties for women in their societies. It is a complex issue to understand how the role of women are shaped in early civilizations, since women owned property or became ruler, given opportunities in politics or vote rights in Ancient Egypt but they were suppressed by discriminated laws in Mesopotamia. By looking at different continents and civilizations, I will discuss the major reasons of headway of women equality while its collapse at some point.
In early civilizations women had the primary role of managing the house. In Ancient Egypt women were equal to men except the occupations they hold; cooking, sewing. While a Mesopotamian woman was no different; being wife, mother and housekeeper. The role of women in Mayas was weavers and dyers, producing
clothes for family. Middle-class women of different communities obviously had similarities, which might be the result of giving birth to a child and assist them till the maturity, as well as gathering habits or staying home to protect fire in early existence. With the development of civilization, law is also evolved and simple, yet unjust rules appeared to give the equal rights to women in Egypt and Sparta. Although, certain allowances for Spartan women were to ensure progress in the society, they were still more equal laws than Hamurappi rules. Hamurappi had universal rules in which a man’s eye was twice expensive of woman’s life. Property rights of Egyptian women is another crucial example of equality. They could buy or sell legal contracts, be executor in will and witness to legal documents, bring an action at court (Mark, 2016). Sumerian women would also run businesses with husbands and own property. (Rank, 2010) These two similarities would be the result of goddess beliefs, since in Mesopotamia women lost their property rights after a lot of wealth accumulated along with continuous wars, which is pursued by a structured and strong patriarchy. I believe that in multinational states like Mesopotamia religion beliefs are usually suppressed by laws, considering the fact that future rulers followed Hamurappi rules.
It is hard to believe that religion is set based on current social norms, but if a priest make Egyptians believe in goddess, that means the women had an important, structured role in the society that cannot be derogated. For example, in Mesopotamia much of the wealth came from waving and selling clothes, even temples employed thousands of women in making cloth. In
ancient Egypt you can see it with bare eyes; Tenenet was a goddess of beer (women practiced beer making), Shay was the goddess of written word and libraries (female doctors were highly respected) or the Tayet, goddess of weaving (women were sandal makers, basket weavers). (Mark, 2016) In agricultural society without consecutive war, women were generating more wealth in fertile lands. The same was true about Mesopotamian goddess, but we hardly observe them in Mayas or Spartans. Thus, the image of women in religious beliefs was so important to give them property rights which would pull them towards politics if backed by law. These goddess beliefs achieved equality in Egypt but not in Mesopotamia, because both have progressed in different ways. Mesopotamians might sell their daughters to the temple, who would later be powerful priestess, but families also could sell their daughters to temple for sacred prostitution which I believe was one of the reasons to reduce likelihood of a women to involve in politics by giving them fake role that would serve priests’ interests.
That was not the case in Egypt. Social status of women and goddess beliefs brought the most important position; The God's Wife to a level where they had an equal power to a king and capacity to rule Egypt effectively. Even after the New kingdom established, women started predicting future events and their causation. Female rulers can be minority in Egypt but popular queens, like Neferitti (c.1370-1336 BCE), the wife of Akhenaten, cared for their family while also helping her husband run the country. When her husband essentially abandoned his duties as pharaoh to concentrate on his new monotheistic religion, Neferitti
assumed his responsibilities. The power of women in ruling improved by following dynasties and in Early Dynastic period Hatsheptus broke the rule that only a male could reign over Egypt and considered to be on of the most powerful women ruler in ancient world. Before annexation to Rome Cleopatra VII the last queen of Egypt is among the best representatives of women’s equality as she ruled the country far better than the males. Women's status began to decline in Egypt with the rise of Christianity in the 4th century CE and its belief that sin had entered the world through Eve's disobedience and that women were of less value and less to be trusted than men. The Arab Invasion of the 7th century CE brought Islam to Egypt and effectively ended the kind of equality women had known in the country for almost 3,000 years (Mark, 2016).
Early civilization economy was simple as agriculture, in this case property a women could own would be a vegetable or fruit garden for wine making etc. All these activities only generated less wealth which indeed did not give women higher status. From my perspective, Egyptian women had favorable chance to progress their equality through religious beliefs, because in Egypt the religion interfered with politics while Mesopotamian women failed because they were suppressed by unjust laws (Hamurappi rules) independent of priests and the religion. On the other hand, politics is not the only side to look for equality. For example, in modern times Kurdish women have traditionally played important roles in Kurdish society and politics in progressive movements but forced marriages and other inequalities appeared to be widespread. Women are
also given temporary equalities to establish a strong root for a nation, or for other reasonable purposes. In Israel before national movement to statehood, there was an ideology of gender equality, however after the state established male dominance presented as usual. In my opinion, in the world where long term peace has settled and technology has improved, women equality advances rapidly, which will not be disturbed by any wars or other reasons soon or later.
