Women In The Transition Of Women

The time from 40,000 years ago to 12,000 years ago constitutes a chronological period where all humans were hunters and gatherers (Worlds, 7). Even when the agricultural period came to be, hunters and gatherers were still around and are still around even today. The transition and evidence from the transition was not inconclusive and had a clear negative impact on women. Women go through the transition from being equals with men and aiding in the hunting and gathering era to becoming mainly useful for childbirth to have more men brought into the world for farming and agriculture. Women were even discredited for discovering any farming techniques and taken from doing any physical labor even if they wanted to. They never had a choice to do more.
The hunter-gatherer society was very clear about what was going on at the time. They hunted animals and gathered plants, although, the men usually did the hunting while women did the gathering (Worlds, 2). No matter what job you did, both were equally as important and the men and women were considered equals. In many hunter-gathering societies, gathering provided more food than hunting (Worlds, 2). During this time, an archeologist, Dean Snow of Pennsylvania State University stated that “In most hunter-gatherer societies, it’s men that do the killing. But it’s often the women who haul the meat back to camp, and women are as concerned with the productivity of the hunt as the men are” (Worlds, 4). This gave the idea that both men and women were equally concerned about the hunting and gathering of animals and crops for food. This also shows that both jobs were equally as important. Although in this early period people believed it was patriarchal, dominated by men, because hunting was much more glamourous then gathering, women were not seen differently or seen to be weak and unable to handle the responsibilities.
“Anthropological evidence for societies still living traditional foraging lifestyles and those living by simple, non-mechanized farming, taken in conjunction with direct archeological evidence shows that it is very probable that women were the ones who first observed plant behavior and discovered how to grow and tend to crops” (Worlds, 15).
Women played a major role in the transition to crop cultivation. In the hunter-gatherer society, women were mostly the ones gathering plants which provided the main bulk of the diets so it makes sense for women to have learned about plants before men. Men usually were the ones hunting animals but although animal products form an important source of proteins in the diet, meat actually makes up a relatively small proportion of the food intake of these societies (Worlds, 15). During the climb of the agricultural society, men ended up doing much of the work, although in horticultural societies, women were responsible. “A study was of 104 horticultural societies existing today showed that in 50 percent of them, women were exclusively responsible for agriculture, in 33 percent of women and men shared various tasks and in only 17 percent were men wholly responsible for farming” (Worlds, 16). Men often helped to clear the plots and undergrowth and women usually how, sow, tend and harvest the crops (Worlds, 16). This offers the idea that women still did the work although they did not have to do the hardest labor. They generally had to be the ones
to do most of the work for the crops themselves.
As time progressed, the status of women drastically fell and farming became mainly a male sanctuary. Men generally owned the land and the tools for farming, and they also tended to the animals. Plough agriculture emerged which was a male activity because it is more physically demanding then hoe agriculture (Worlds 19). Women were taken from this job because they were not seen as strong enough to complete the task. Women were then viewed to be the producers of children which led to more laborer’s (Worlds 19). This lowered the possibilities of women every growing in the agricultural society because they were pregnant for significant amounts of time and then looked at to be the predominant caretakers of the children as well. They never were trained nor had the times to even be given a chance to take care of the crops. The men ended up taking over any jobs the women did have so the status of women as a necessity in the agricultural era lowered immensely.
Social changes impacted the status of women as well.
There was a switch between matrilocal residence and matrilineal descent to patrilocal residence and patrilineal decent. This means that instead of residing where the wife’s parents are, they resided where the husband’s parents were. In a matrilineal system, his sisters sons, rather than his own sons, inherit herds, land and equipment when he passes (Worlds, 19). Women were not involved in the land-based tasks, they would have learnt the basic skills from their mothers so it would have been more obvious for them also to inherit their land and equipment (Worlds, 19). Far less is at stake of loss in a matrilocal residence then a patrilocal. In the matrilineal system, the women were who inherited most when there was a
death.
The change of the status of women is very clearly seen over the course of time. As the balance of work changed from part hunting, part crop cultivating and tending a small number of animals to an economy dependent on mixed farming, so the roles and duties of women and men have shifted (Wolds, 17). They go from equals with men to servants to men and lose much of their status and their chances for inheritance and growth. They were individuals and had a large role to play in the community with men in the hunter-gatherer societies but once the agricultural society emerged, women became nothing but child bearers and babysitters. They lost their chance to grow in the agricultural world but not by choice. The hunter-gatherer society gave a greater status to women because everyone worked cohesively but was quickly demoted to be more like “property” then anything throughout the transition.