FURTHER READING
Ifi Amadiume, Re-Inventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion, and Cul-
ture, rpt. (London: Zed Books, 1998).
Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in
Mesopotamia (New York: Routledge, 2001).
Elizabeth W. Barber, Women’s Work: Th e First 20,000 Years (New
York: W. W. Norton, 1994).
Maria Brosius, Women in Ancient Persia, 559–331 bc (Ox ford: Clar-
endon Press, 1996).
Karen Olsen Bruhns and Karen E. Stothert, Women in Ancient
America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999).
Cheryl Claassen and Rosemary A. Joyce, eds., Women in Prehistory:
North America and Mesoamerica (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1997).To wash and scrub fi lth away, to keep clothes and
ornaments fresh and clean, to wash the head and bathe
the body regularly, and to keep the person free from
disgraceful fi lth may be called the characteristics of
womanly bearing.
With whole-hearted devotion to sew and to weave, to
love not gossip and silly laughter, in cleanliness andorder to prepare the wine and food for serving guests
may be called the characteristics of womanly work.
Th ese four qualifi cations characterize the greatest
virtue of a woman. No woman can aff ord to be without
them. In fact, they are very easy to possess if a woman
only treasures them in her heart.From: Nancy Lee Swann, trans., Pan Chao:
Foremost Woman Scholar of China (New
York: Century Co., 1932), pp. 82–90.(cont inues)God made the mind of woman in the beginning of
diff erent qualities; for one he fashioned like a bristly hog,
in whose house everything tumbles about in disorder,
bespattered with mud, and rolls upon the ground; she,
dirty, with unwashed clothes, sits and grows fat on a
dungheap. Th e woman like mud is ignorant of everything,
both good and bad; her only accomplishment is eating:
cold though the winters be, she is too stupid to draw
near the fi re. Th e woman made like the sea has two minds;
when she laughs and is glad, the stranger seeing her at
home will give her praise—there is nothing better than
this on the earth, no, nor fairer; but another day she is
unbearable, not to be looked at or approached, for she
is raging mad. To friend and foe she is alike implacable
and odious. Th us, as the sea is often calm and innocent,
a great delight to sailors in summertime, and oftentimes
again is frantic, tearing along with roaring billows, so is
this woman in her temper.
Th e woman who resembles a mare is delicate and long-
haired, unfi t for drudgery or toil; she would not touch
the mill, or lift the sieve, or clean the house out! She
bathes twice or thrice a day and anoints herself with
myrrh; then she wears her hair combed out long and
wavy, dressed with fl owers. It follows that this woman
is a rare sight to one’s guests; but to her husband she is acurse, unless he be a tyrant who prides himself on such
expensive luxuries. Th e ape-like wife has Zeus given as
the greatest evil to men. Her face is most hateful. Such
a woman goes through the city a laughing-stock to all
the men. Short of neck, with narrow hips, withered of
limb, she moves about with diffi culty. O! wretched man,
who weds such a woman! She knows every cunning art,
just like an ape, nor is ridicule a concern to her. To no
one would she do a kindness, but every day she schemes
to this end—how she may work someone the greatest
injury.Th e man who gets the woman like a bee is lucky; to her
alone belongs no censure; one’s household goods thrive
and increase under her management; loving, with a
loving spouse, she grows old, the mother of a fair and
famous race. She is preeminent among all women, and
a heavenly grace attends her. She cares not to sit among
the women when they indulge in lascivious chatter.
Such wives are the best and wisest mates Zeus grants to
men. Zeus made this supreme evil—woman: even though
she seem to be a blessing, when a man has wedded one
she becomes a plague.From: Mitchell Carroll, Greek Women
(Philadelphia: Rittenhouse Press, 1908). Semonides of Amorgos: “Th e Types
of Women,” ca. 550 b.c.e. Greece506 gender structures and roles: further reading