Gender Equality In World History

Gender equality is an issue well known by the global population. The problem dates way back throughout history to the ancient civilizations and even before that. Women were given less rights and had a lower social standing in society. In the book Gender in World History, the author, Peter N. Stearns writes about the inequalities between the two sexes as well as their individual roles and positions in different societies. Some examples in his book are “In patriarchal societies, men were held to be superior. They had legal rights lacking to women… ‘thrown into the water’” (chapt 1 page 14). Another example is, “while women engaged in physical exercise, their main functions were motherhood - to create more boys - and support of male valor”(chapt 2 page 26). A third example of this is, “Wives were supposed to obey not only their husband but also his parents”(chapt 3 page 35). In each of these examples the women are obviously lacking rights or forced into a more submissive role by the society they lived in. The world history theme that is best reflected in the author’s thesis is the systems of social structure and gender structure. An example of how the author explains this in the book is, “ Responsibilites for women focused on the household - weaving and domestic work… and the duties of inferiors”(chapt 3 page 36). What the author is saying here is confucian women were basically at the bottom of the social …show more content…
Stearns provides many pieces of evidence from different countries and religions, such as China, India, Europe, Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism to support his thesis. He also uses examples from back in ancient civilizations and from more recent times to further support his thesis. Using many pieces of evidence from different countries and religions in the world, Stearns weaves together the different views on social structure and gender structure to effectively present his