Renaissance Case

No female historical record survives from classical societies. While Plato or Aristotle may have written about the need to advance the female role in society, women held little or no power in society. Most of the 2,500 years of the written historical record is devoted to the accomplishment of males. Topics of politics, economics, and military activities dominate within this gendered-centric focus. The facts that are referred to as history are really documents that are biased towards the male or patriarchal viewpoint. Women have played critical roles throughout history, but their participation and achievement have been frequently overlooked or ignored.

Examining the sweep of history can help to explain the differential status of women and men in society. Women in Spartan or Roman cultures enjoyed more power than in other societies because of the amount of war in both. When husbands were away at war, some women conducted household business, which provided a certain amount of freedom from the everyday tasks of childbearing and wifehood. As reading and education declined after the fall of Rome, Christianity filled the void. Religious devotion opened up a new avenue for women. As an option to marriageVitruvian Man and family, a woman could become a nun. Women who pursued this course generally had greater availability to an education and the arts.

The Renaissance and Reformation brought new ideas that challenged the social structure that was set by the church. This rebirth brought by the Renaissance created some opportunities for women to become literate and educated people. There were then women patrons, artists, scientists, and authors. Protestant theology, at the heart of the Reformation, taught that a woman was her own sex, and was a beautiful handiwork of God. Still, women were regarded as inferior to males and more blameworthy for the exissuffragette womentence of original sin because of Eve's actions.

In the American colonies, distance from established European institutions and the harsh conditions of settlement life changed the role of women in colonial and frontier life. Disease and starvation increased the need for offspring and also resulted in scarcity of women, which caused them to earn a higher value in society. Hardship and deprivation caused fewer adherences to religious proscriptions, which granted a little more freedom and respect to women. Hardship could also demand the suspension of gender roles or the division of labor. All family members could find themselves engaged in the labor of survival.

The more politically or economically impoverished a society is, the more dependent that people are on a group or collective organization to achieve the change that they desire. As people gain control over resources - and therefore, can control other people - the less dependent they become on group cohesion for strength. For example, in the United States, the denial of basic rights to women had long been recognized by many groups as unjust. However, women's rights were not recognized as worthy of social change until women organized into political groups. The American women's suffrage movement achieved power because new groups of economics were formed; women in the working and middle classes acquired access to resources, which gave them a legitimate form of power. As women acquired rights, the women became less dependent on each other. Women