Womens Roles in Traditional Societies

Women belong in the house.

Women must be protected by men.
Women must remain modest.
Women are unclean.
Such statements only touch the edge of the frozen, ancient precipice of reasons why
women supposedly cannot excel in todays world. From negative media images targeted at
insecure girls and a denial of education for girls in some countries (Day), this entrapment of
females under a sheet of ice begins young. And it continues into adulthood with forcing females
to marry young and then care for their children, only to sell their daughters into arranged
marriages or servitude just to provide for them (Day). And, as such, the cycle perpetuates.
Many men have, for centuries, shoved females under a glassy foothold of tundra simply to
trample upon them. And some women turn blue and suffocate whilst allowing these males to
strip them of their life and dignity.
Women constitute about half the worlds population and give birth to the rest, though
oftentimes men continue to dominate and label females. Yet to denote them as unclean buries
their role as mothers. And to suggest that women are incapable of higher functions or
capacities in society underwrites their desire to learn and then, rather than stepping out into the
world like males might, teach the next generation, thus halting the cycle of illiteracy (When).
Women can hold the key to breaking from their icy shell and lifting the world up. Why, then, did
the world cast them down?
The answer may lie in the roots of human origins. According to an assessment of
likenesses and differences of animal DNA, chimps and humans branched off from a Miocene ape

ancestor between 4 and 8 million years ago. Humans and chimps share 98.8 percent of genetic
material, bolstering this hypothesis of evolution (Johanson, 272). As such, studying the role of
females in chimp societies may provide a slight insight into how human females are viewed.
Female chimps leave the troop they were born into and join other troops, much like when human
females leave their families to live with their husbands. In chimps, this behavior may help to
reduce inbreeding, which leads to health problems and infertility.
Male chimps, on the other hand, remain in their natal troop and ally with each other, thus
defending their territory together. This can take a deadly turn when a female with children joins
a new troop. Males slaughter her young in part because a lactating female cannot become
pregnant. Without children, the female can have new offspring by a resident male (115). Such
brutal behavior may resonate amongst those human males who attempt violence like throwing
acid on women to serve their own purposes.
The division of labor amongst male and female chimps may also foreshadow a similar
division amongst hunter-gatherers, the earliest and longest-lasting human society. Female
chimps seek bush babies, a simple primate, and stab them with a wooden spear for food (113).
Male chimps, meanwhile, hunt for larger prey; for instance, some male Ta chimps drive prey
towards other male chimps, who wall the prey in. Then the male chimps divide their kill
amongst themselves (117). In modern hunter-gatherer societies, males hunt larger animals,
whilst females tackle smaller game, sew clothing, and other domestic tasks (242).
These modern hunter-gatherer societies, which have altered little in millennia, provide
clues about artifacts of more ancient humans. Due to mitochondrial DNA testing, 150 people of
five different populations can trace their lineage to an African woman who lived around 200,000
years ago, bolstering the hypothesis that humans originated in Africa (254). Humans then

migrated throughout Africa; shortly thereafter, between 195,000 and 130,000 years ago, the
world became largely inhospitable due to global cooling. South Africa, due to its warm ocean
currents and shellfish, became a safe haven for some of the remaining 600 people (267). Indeed,
a cave dwelling near Mossel Bay, South Africa (262), has yielded around 164,000 year-old
shellfish, especially the mussels for which the bay is still famous (264). If modern huntergatherers are any indication, women likely hunted these shellfish (265). Fifty-seven pieces of
red ochre have also been discovered in the cave; Curtis Marean of the Institute of Human Origins
believes the red may be representative of blood, or menstruation (266).
Indigenous African religions, which persist into the modern era, may provide more
definitive evidence for this statement; in the Diola tradition, for instance, spirit shrines
representing male spiritual power allow men to control rituals regarding the hunt, among other
things. Females, on the other hand, control rituals for fertility and childbirth (Oxford, 26). In
Diola communities, female rites of passage include girls puberty rituals; when several girls
approach menstruation, their mothers and other older women introduce them to new religious
and social roles (26). In the Dogon tradition, the world was created when Amma, the Supreme
Being, transformed himself into a womb and placed four spirits, Nummo, inside for sixty years.
One of the male Nummo, Pale Fox, sought his wife, hidden in another part of the womb, so he
tore the womb apart to find her. The torn womb became the earth; the other two Nummo clothed
the Earth with vegetation. Pale Fox, seeking company, stole the Earths clothing, and this action
caused the first menstruation. The Earth required purification from this before she could support
life (26-27). The religion indigenous to Melanesia regards menstruation as similarly unclean
and a loss of male power, so men purified themselves by inducing monthly nosebleeds before
having relations with their wives (46).

Even in more widely-recognized religions like Judaism, menstrual blood is traditionally

regarded as unclean. Due to the Bibles designation of menstrual blood as a polluting substance,
the product of uncleanliness due to touching it requires a visit to a mikveh, or bathhouse.
Husbands and wives had to ritually cleanse themselves after engaging in relations; Orthodox
Jews still observe this practice (89). In Hinduism, as well, menstruation was considered so
polluting that menstruating women were removed from society, though most communities no
longer observe this. Still, menstruating women cannot cook or participate in religious rituals.
Also, on the fourth day, Hindu women have a ritually purifying bath. This attitude extends to
childbirth; while auspicious, the family is considered impure as a result. The mother is treated
like a menstruating woman (312).
Religions also single out women in other ways; most notably in Islam, women must
remain veiled for modesty. But the hijab/veil is never explicitly mentioned in the Quran,
which only states that women must dress modestly; the Quran demands this of men, as well.
The hijab/veil likely dates to the time of the caliphate, due to eastern Christian and ancient Greek
usage of veils (252). These foreign influences also led to the seclusion of women from public,
which was noticeable in the harem system of the Ottoman world. These practices persist into the
modern world, where a debate regarding how limiting they are to women still rages (253).
Traditional patriarchal societies have also continued to limit womens freedom. In
Confucianism, for instance, the social order stands upon hierarchal restrictions, in which superior
rulers, fathers, and husbands require submission from their inferiors. Women had to submit to
the Three Obediences: obeying her father at home, her husband in marriage, and her son if
widowed (467). To further this patriarchal society, women had to provide male heirs as their
divine duty to their ancestors (466).

Humans share a common ancestor with chimps, whose societieslike human societies
require that females leave their natal groups to join a new group in order to mate. Female
chimps also hunt small sources of meat; male chimps, meanwhile, hunt big game for food. This
practice carried to humanitys first societies of hunter-gatherers, in which men hunted larger
game whilst females caught smaller game, as well as sewing clothes and a variety of other
domestic tasks. These ancient hunter-gatherer societies may have also had symbolic references
towards menstruation; even today, multiple religions regard menstrual blood as ritually impure.
Some religions also require that females remain secluded. And traditional patriarchal societies
assign a secondary role to women. Even now, in the age of Western democracy, equal rights
between men and women remain more an ideal than a reality.

Works Cited

Day of the Girl. Day of the Girl, 2012. Web. 29 Mar. 2013.
Johanson, Donald C. and Kate Wong. Lucys Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins.
New York: Harmony Books, 2009. Print.
Oxford University Press. A Concise Introduction to World Religions. Ontario, Canada:
Oxford University Press. 2007.
When You Educate a Girl, Everything Changes. Room to Read. Room to Read,
2012. Web. 29 Mar. 2013.