Poesia

Monica Turner
Dr. Mary Ann Pauken
English World Literature
24 April 2010
A Woman’s Pickle
The role of women has been evolving and continuously changing in great paces but not without a struggle. Since the beginning of time, women have been the subject of study, discrimination and debate. Our problem arises from the relationship we have with men: how they view us, respect us and treat us.Through centuries, women have been condemned by men but yet we are still their objects of adoration, creatures they lust upon, even in some cases feared, hated and loved. This happens in different areas of this intricate relationship of our species. But religion and history helped to complicate things a little bit more. For example, different cultures have similar stories of the beginning of time,mentioning this male nemesis known as women, as a key part of creation. The implication of a woman’s capability to scheme and be distrusted but at the same time being the key in civilization started in Christianity with Genesis. In history, the story of Hesiod’s creation Theogony, illustrates this complicated gender relationship, introducing lust as well as love. Again, Theogony demonstrates afemale’s important place in civilization from the beginning. In this complicated war of the sexes can there be any truth to the saying “we cannot live with them, but much less without them?” or this is just a cliché?
In Genesis we are told that man was created in God’s image, after his likeness and to take over animals in the sea, earth and air. A woman was created by God from Adam’s rib to be hiswife, a partner in his life not just a simple voiceless companion (Norton p 57-59). It was the stigma of the temptation of Eve which has haunted women through the years and made women look incapable of making any judgments. Women are portrayed as disobedient, deceitful, and prone to temptation, motivated by self-interest and viewed as a seductress of evil doings. In other words, Eve not onlyrepresents everything about a woman that man should guard against, but also the fall of human race to say the least. On the other hand, the world was populated because of women. There would be no civilization without a female counterpart. We can also argue that Adam had a choice and he was not strong enough to deny temptation. Maybe his love for Eve was so great that it blinded him. Or maybe Godin his great wisdom had this planned from the start. Eve was needed to populate the Earth and to fulfill God’s will.
The issue of religion and women’s role had a great impact in society as a whole. It is not only in Christianity that we can see discrimination. In Muslim societies we can see how women are still castrated, physically, socially and emotionally, just because of religious beliefs.Still today many women are continuing to fight for just treatment without having to be physically punished or being scared of being exploited of even murdered. In other cultures women still undermined and seen as mindless, voiceless objects of trade. In today’s American society, women are still underpaid compared to her male counterpart. There remains the invisible barrier preventing women fromobtaining positions of power. Women remain sexually exploited and harassed in the workplace and at home.
In Theogony, Hesiod’s writing reveals to us not only the battle of the sexes even at the beginning of creation, but also how in history this female role was tainted from the start. Gaia is the female personification of Earth. She gave birth to mountains, sea and heaven. Heaven is thepersonification of a male that lusted and covered earth on all sides. He impregnated her one too many times, creating Gods and life as they knew it. Gaia was tired of the abuse, and with an aching heart, she encouraged her children to stop their father’s cruelty. It was the love of Kronos for her mother that made him go against his father, Heaven. Kronos castrated him, throwing his genitals...