Gender Polarization In Ancient Egypt

The civilians demonstrated an abundant amount of care and personal treatment when it came to treating women, in comparison to many of the other major civilizations of the ancient world. Within the average life of a citizen, a high amount of attention was put towards maintaining stable levels of happiness and joy through the home and family life in one’s lifetime. When analyzing the context and meaning of where women were situated within the family household throughout ancient Egypt, this historical place varied from time to time and also changed if a certain law drew a gender polarization among men and women. Hollis suggests that “in addressing the issue of the relationship of the goddess of a culture to the status of women, ideally one should …show more content…
However, women were treated and placed in a different regard in Ancient Egypt in comparison to other Ancient Mediterranean societies when looking at their social, legal and economic positions throughout society. As a whole, women benefitted from the same economic, social and legal rights as men did. In order to locate evidence to provide reasoning for locating the place of women in Ancient Egyptian society, the use of primary source is scarcely limited, however close attention can be emphasized towards using evidence located in artwork, surviving texts, temples, and tombs on monuments. In this paper, it will be demonstrated that women in Ancient Egypt were viewed as a higher status in society and had greater roles than other ancient cultures and their …show more content…
In fact, the most common career for women was the priesthood, serving male and female deities other than housewife and mother. Royal women held the title, 'God 's Wife ' which brought with it with significant political power that came second only to the king, for whom they could even deputise. Also in jubilee ceremonies, the royal cult had its female priestesses acting alongside the roles and responsibilities of men as well as earning their livings as professional mourners, they occasionally functioned as funerary priests. As was aforementioned, the roles and responsibilities of women to perform certain tasks were enhanced if they possessed the ability to read and write but. However, with less than two percent of ancient Egyptian society known to be literate, the number of women with these skills would be even smaller. This was because literacy became a requirement in order to enter into various careers such as steward, doctor and