Gender Roles In Early Societies

Adam and Eve, first the man and then the woman came. Beginning with this ancient belief of men coming first, women have been stuck on the back burner for generations. Women have been put into domestic boxes through being told: stay in the kitchen, clean the house, and take care of the kids. This perspective of women has limited their opportunities and options in life. Women are always one step ahead due to how hard they work but still two steps behind because of who they are. The mindset of old fashioned gender roles restricts women from reaching their full potential in the work place.

From the times of early civilizations, men and women were given distinct roles in society; men were tasked with labor intensive work whereas women were given domestic control. Author Anne Steinmann describes the division of labor in early societies as follows:

Sexual roles and relationships in early societies were strictly functional. They served a specific purpose in the total society; in most cases, it was simple survival. It is probable that these functional roles were rigidly adhered to, just as they are today in primitive societies. Roles were elementary and based on imputable fact, the sex of the individual. (15)

Men were typically the hunters of the family whereas women stayed close to home where they

Writer Susan Pinker discusses how “unfair wage disparities for the same work still exist”. In our society today, Women get paid a few cents less to a man’s dollar. In a country that claims to be built on equality, the most crucial item in our society, money, being unequal is absurd. This inequality leads to an ideal that any women who does the job right won’t get paid the same amount as a man who does the same job. Leading to the notion that women are below men in the work place which plays into employee not taking female leadership