The Renaissance era in my mind is the greatest era. The Renaissance era had a huge impact on our lifestyles today, from Culture, Society, and Religion. In order to fully understand the concept of the gender roles we must understand how the men and women at that time were viewed. Did the women have a Renaissance like the men? The way in which society valued men and women differed greatly. Men basically functioned as the ruling voice over all aspects of society. But the women had virtually no control over their role in society. The women of that time were excluded from any position of meaningful authority in any realm of society. Just like today’s society they established beauty as an important quality of life, and only men had the capacity to …show more content…
The duties of husband and wife were explicitly defined and expected to be followed by both men and women. The role of the husband is one of authority and dominance. Women were seen as inferior in their abilities to run a household and make moral decisions. A woman’s role as wife is also clearly defined. In the marriage contract, “. . . the wife must obey the husband. This obedience or submission extends not only to the performance of duties required by the husband, but also to the abstinence from those activities which are displeasing to him. Women who chose to become wives, which is the majority of the female population, agree to submit themselves to total control by their husbands. They move from living under the control of their fathers to living under the control of their …show more content…
“Intellectually, [women] were seen as limited; most Englishmen, including women themselves, thought that a woman was by nature incapable of higher learning, being framed by God only for domestic duties”. Women were not only excluded from the educational opportunities offered to men, they were thought of as physically unable to learn the same materials men studied. Furthermore, “many men seem to have regarded the capacity for rational thought as exclusively male; women, they assumed, were led only by their passions”. These women were unable to escape from their emotions long enough to learn something factual. This assumption is also related to Renaissance conceptions of biology. This rudimentary conception of heat as a biological difference led people to believe that women were inferior to men in almost every capacity except those dealing with domestic
Women in society were always put as not being equal to men. During the Renaissance, women were inferior to men; women in different classes had different roles. Low class women were expected to be housewives and take care of everything to do with the house. Working class women were expected to work for their husbands and help them run their business. They would work along side with their husbands and then go home and take care of the household. Upper class women may have had servants and workers working for them but the women were still expected to take care of the house hold.
In the traditional political history of Italy the people outside of the ruling class of the society were rarely studied. Only with the use of social history did the issues of class and gender begin to be debated by scholars. Numerous recent articles have done a great job of analysing particularly men of high status. In this paper I will look at the lower classes of Renaissance Florence. More specifically, I will center my focus on the lives of women during this era, how they were treated and viewed by people of other classes and how women were viewed and treated by men.
The 17th and 18th centuries saw the embryonic stage of women’s quest for intellectual and social parity with men. The evolution of women’s fight for equal opportunities was bogged down by a long history of stereotyping and condescension. Women were weaker physically, bore children and nurtured them. The economics and culture of Europe at this time was strongly influenced by religion and resulted in prejudice against women. The dominating religions of Europe in the 1600’s and 1700’s (Catholicism and Protestantism), citing the bible, reinforced women’s roles as mother’s, wives, and homemakers. Women were considered the weaker sex both physically and mentally. Men and most women assumed that because women gave birth and produced milk for their infants, God intended that their place was in the home. Men’s egos, as well, did not allow for women to compete with them. Males thought their place was to rule, fight wars, provide income, teach and be the head of his family. Women were not accepted in academics, politics, church leadership, business, or the military. Despite these prejudices, women saw an opportunity in the sciences. As a discipline based on observations and deductive reasoning it did not necessarily require a comprehensive academic background. Since most women were deprived of the more advanced education that men received, it was the perfect field for them to begin their pursuit of equality. As a result, a growing number of women actively participated in scientific research in chemistry, astronomy, biology, botany, medicine, and entomology.
...imately men were in command in all situations: Ischomachos’s wife says, “For my guarding and distribution of the indoor things would look somewhat ridiculous, I suppose, if it weren’t your concern to bring in something from outside (Oeconomicus, VII 39).” This suggests that even though the wife was the indoor household manager, she was still obeying her husband’s orders that were the driving force of her own agency within the oikos.
Women have an important responsibility precisely in societies that are democratic because of their ability to influence and shape their lives. As the remark of Tocqueville goes, “there has never existed any free society without the mores, and.it is women who always shape the mores. Hence, everything having a bearing on the women’s status, their thoughts and habits are, in my view, of great importance politically” (Tocqueville and Mayer, 1969p.97). Nimtz (2003p.46) pointed out that the principle way by which the women shape the mores is through their roles as mothers and as wives. Tocqueville argues that the accorded respect to the marriage institution in the society has an impact on the wellbeing and the order of that society as a whole.
Women during the medieval period had certain role with their husbands, depending on his social status. The wives were placed into a class according to their husband’s line of work or social status (Time Traveler’s 54). This social status may be favorable, but not all wives were able to make it into the elite social status. Once the woman was committed, and married to her husband, she was totally controlled by her husband. Even though the wife was able to maintain the same social status of the husband, she lost a lot of rights after she married. Women during the medieval period not only lost a lot of their rights, but also became somewhat of a slave to the husband in many ways.
Women in this era had just begun to secure some freedom from their typical cultural expectations. They were expected to take care of the children, cook, clean, sew and be presentable to society. As jobs were made available to women, only a low percentage of these women started to work outside of the home. This means that many women had chosen to stay inside the home to remain in the role of “house keeper”. Even though the woman attained some freedom they were still considered inferior to men. Men still had the most authority in the household and
The question of women’s agency, in moving history holds a long history dating back to the ancients, then turning away from that in small degrees during the Renaissance. Most notable in this change comes from the capital of education, the Italianate states. Home to rife differences in attitudes towards women, it also hosts the origins of the discussion around women’s purpose. The current field largely finds inspiration from writers during the American 1970s women’s rights movement, and it shows in the modern origins and their influence. However, the field’s creation date loom farther back than such a recent movement, easily dating back to Plato and Aristotle. Beginning with a negative view of the female sex as inferiority, the study of women and their rights progressed to Giovanni Boccaccio’s creation of female biography in 1374, and further developed with a female voice in 1405 under the pen of Christine de Pizan. Clearly, none of the prestigious scholars could have predicted the alterations and growth of the discussion surrounding a people group often considered subhuman.
"Women were denied knowledge of their history, and thus each woman had to argue as though no woman before her had ever thought or written. Women had to use their energy to reinvent the wheel, over and over again, generation after generation. ... thinking women of each generation had to waste their time, energy and talent on constructing their argument anew. Generation after generation, in the face of recurrent discontinuities, women thought their way around and out from under patriarchal thought." (Lerner qtd in Merrim Modern Women xxiii)
During the 16th century, women were not equivalent to men. Women were rarely educated and had only a few rights. The woman basically got marry and had children, or had simple jobs. Certainly, they were viewed as weak individuals and inferior to men. In spite of that one woman raised above this common perception - her majesty, Queen Elizabeth I.
Women in different societies around the world, during the Middle Ages, experienced different hardships and roles. These hardships and roles helped shape how they were viewed in their society. Some women were treated better and more equal than others. In Rome, Medieval England, and Viking society, women’s legal status, education, marriage and family roles were considered diverse, but also similar. In certain nation’s women have more or less power than women in other nations, but none equal to the power that women have in America today.
The Enlightenment is known as the revolution that brought to question the traditional political and social structures. This included the question of the woman’s traditional roles in society. As the public sphere relied more and more ?? and the advances in scientific and educated thinking, women sought to join in with the ranks of their male counterparts. Women held gatherings known as salons where they organized intellectual conversations with their distinguished male guests. Seeking to further their status, enlightened women published pamphlets and other works advocating for educational rights and political recognition. Even with this evolution of woman in society, many still clung to the belief that the role of the woman was solely domestic. The females that spoke up were usually deemed unnatural. However these women used the time period of reason and science that allowed them the opportunity to break away from their domestic roles and alter the view of women in society.
The attitude towards women, their treatment and their rights, underwent many changes during the Renaissance. During feudal times women were given more liberties and enjoyed freedoms. They could own land and had many of the rights men had. However, this period where so many great changes had been made in the church, in literature, and in all other artistic areas, women took a big step backward in their fight for equality.
The Renaissance was simply “the green end of one of civilization's hardest winters” (Robert 10). In other words, catastrophic events swept through Europe such as the black plague, warfare, and starvation causing a high population of death rates. After an era of destitution, the Renaissance was a period of “rebirth” where individuals could express their intellectual thought through art, science, literature, and education. It’s true that people during that time express humanist ideals of individual achievement, but does the word “individual” contribute to both men and women (Ramirez 439)? As a result, in what ways did the Renaissance world view influence or impact social issues such as gender equality? The Renaissance highly influenced gender equality especially in terms of marriage, wealth ownership, and freedom of expression. With this is mind one should question, “did women have a Renaissance” (Kelly 1) or exhibit the same privileges as men?
In the 16th century, women and men were defined as having specific and contrasting roles within society. Men were defined as being powerful and dominant while women were defined as being submissive and meek. These ideals can be seen across cultures and throughout time. With these definitions of gender roles in place, the text suggests that gender is a social construct therefore qualities of femininity and masculinity are subjective. This is shown when Portia cross dresses as the lawyer Balthazar (IV) and when the truths of the rings are discovered by the two women (V). The strong female characters in the play exemplify that women are not confined to their social construct as they manipulate the male characters. During the 16th century only