Women of ancient greece and egypt
Equality in the ancient world was not the same as it is today. In ancient Greece women were not looked upon as equals. They were considered to be secondary in relation to men. On the other hand the women of ancient Egypt enjoyed many of the same freedoms as the men did. They, unlike women in most cultures of the time, were considered more or less equals. Ideally this social equality would have been the same for all ancient women. Ancient Greece was the cradle of western civilization. It was a land comprised of small city states. Often in history books, the men of this time are only mentioned and the women are too easily forgotten, but we must not forget the women that lived in this time, for they played just as significant a role in creating and in making this culture inspiring to this day.Women in archaic Greece were prepared for marriage and motherhood through dancing and singing and participating in other religious events. Athenian girls knew how to dance, but music was not something that was considered to be very respectable. In Sparta, and generally among Dorian city-states, women enjoyed more freedom and thus participated in music, dancing and telling stories without being looked down upon. An example of this was
Civic religion brought people together to worship the Olympian gods, but it also gave the ancient women of this time an opportunity to come out of their conventional roles to view the outside world and to receive public recognition for the things they did in their daily lives and for who they were. What was it like to be an Ancient Egyptian woman? Did she worry about how she looked, about her weight, about the first appearance of wrinkles on her skin? Did she diet and compare her figure with her friends? Was she bothered about bad breath and stretch marks? Although her life predates modern women's by some thousands of years, it would seem that her preoccupations were very similar to our own. However, one private letter of the New Kingdom from a husband to his wife shows us that while a man could take his wife with him, as he moved up in rank, it would not have been unusual for such a man to divorce her and take a new wife more in keeping with his new and higher social status. They were often portrayed as wild women, flush with wine. The importance of oiling the skin may in part be due not only to the particular skin qualities of Egyptian women but also to the fact that they lived in such a hot, arid climate. Cleopatra's enemies were plotting and manage to throw her away from the throne. They hold themselves elegantly and wear fine clothing with luxurious hair and jewelry. They were expected to have children, to spin, to musically entertain, and generally to make life at home comfortable for their husbands. Nefertiti, Hatshepsut and Cleopatra are examples of queens that have exerted a great power in Egypt. The followers worshipped him in the woods where they became possessed, sacrificing animals and eating raw flesh. Greek drama sometimes emphasized the areas in which Athenian women contributed to the polis, publicly by acting as priestesses and privately by bearing and raising legitimate children, raising them to be future citizens of the state, and by serving as managers of the household's property. It is quite probable that among women the ability to read was far more common than thought. But there weren't a great deal of these women who possessed these jobs. Into the ranks of lyric poets came a female, Sappho who was to become the greatest female poet of classical times, and perhaps ever.
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