" How world can be without a women?"
ORIGINS:
Throughout history, most
societies have held
women in an inferior status compared to that of men. This situation was often justified as being the natural result of biological differences between the sexes. In many societies, poeple believed women to be naturally more emotional and less decisive than men. Women were also held to be less intelligent and less creative by nature.But research shows that women and men have the same range of emotional, intellectual, and creative characteristics. Many sociologist and anthropologist maintain that various cultures have taught girls to behave according to negative stereotypes of femininity, thus keeping alive the idea that women are naturally inferior.
From earliest times, the fact that women were the childbearers helped establish a division of task between women and men. In every society, only women bear children and nurse infant, leading to a tradition of women assuming most of the responsibility for child care. Men, by contrast, have been free to work at greater distances from their families. In early societies, this division of labor did not necessarily suggest inequality. But in more developed societies, a division of labor between women who work mainly in the home and men who
worked outside the home could give men economic superiority. A woman who stayed home came to depend on some else usually a man to earn money for the necessities of life.
Women also differ physicaly from men in being, on average, smaller and less powerfully muscled. These physical differences helped define certain physically demanding or dangerous jobs as mens work. Eventually, the division of tasks that originally had been determined by physical differences became a matter of tradition. Consequently, even after machinery canceled out the advantage of male strength and after birth control gave women the means to regulate their chil-bearing, women continued to face barriers to entering many occupations.
Ancient age:
The lives of most women centered around their household. In the Greek city state of Athens from about 500 to 300 B.C. women raised children and managed the spinning, weaving, and cooking in the household. Wealthy women supervised slaves in these tasks, but they also did some of the work themselves. Respectable Athenian women seldom left their homes. Only men could purchase goods or engage in soldiering, lawmaking, and public speaking. The societies of ancient Egypt and of the Greek city-state Sparta provided a rare contrast. Both Egyptian and Spartan women could own property and engage in business.
In ancient Rome, as in Athens,
womens primary role was to manage
household affairs. Women could not hold public office. Men dominated as head of the household. But the Romans developed a system of government based on the authority and leadership of a noble class that included not only statemen and military leaderws, but also the matrons ( married women) of leading Roman families. For example, the Roman matron Cornelia, who lived during the 100s B.C. achieved fame and respect for her managerial skill, patriotism and good works. In time, such upper-class women gained greater control over their property and over marriage decisions. However, even these women could not vote or hold public office.
Middle Ages:
Began in the A.D. 400s and lasted about a thousand years, womens lives continued much as before. Like the Roman matrons, medieval noblewomen managed large households and supervised servants, oversaw, gardens, attended to clothing and furnishings and entertained guest. Many other women worked as cooks andservants, or worked in the pastures and fields of large estates.
However, two new
roles for women did appear during the Middle Ages- the nun and the woman active in trade, either as an artisan or as a merchant. Convents flourished during the early Middle Ages. They offered primarily upper-class women an alternative to marriage and provided education, spiritual development and control over extensive land. Beginning in the 1200s women found increasing opportunities for independence as artisans and merchants in the medieval cities of England, France, Germany, and other western European lands.
Renaissance period (1800) :
Fundamental changes in religious and political outlook took root, as leading thinkers began to emphasize the rights of the individual. The Renaissance was a period of great cultural and
intellectual activity that spread throughout Europe from the 1300s to about 1600. The most significant intellectual movement of the Renaissance was humanism, which stressed the importance of human beings and their nature and place in the universe. Some humanist questioned certain traditional ideas about women and favored better education and a more reponsible family role for women.
The Reformation, the religious movement of the 1500s that gave rise to Protestant, also encouraged a reassesment of womens roles. Protestant leaders permitted ministers to marry and began to picture marriage as a mutual relationship of spiritually equal partners.Husbands had less control over the lives of their wives. Protestants also began to view marriage and divorce as matters of individual choice rather as the fulfillment of obligations to such authorities as parents and the church.
The Age of Reason another period of great intellectual activity- swept Europe in the 1600s and 1700s. During this era, educated women participated in intellectual and political debates. In Paris, gatherings called salons promoted conversation and discussion among learned men and women. The salons widened these womens view of society and thier possible roles in it.
Womens roles as workers also expanded during the Age of Reason. In western Europe and the American Colonies, women worked as innkeepers, landowners
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