“A Herstory of Women
Women in History”
A Comparative History
through the Ages and Civilizations Goddesses
Priestesses
Piero Scaruffi (2006) Poetesses
www.scaruffi.com Matrons
Witches
Entertainers
Supermodels
Stars
Part 1: Prehistory and Early History
1
Women in History/ History of Women
A Comparative History through the Ages and Civilizations
Women who seek to be equal Remember no one can make you
with men lack ambition feel inferior without your consent.
Timothy Leary Eleanor Roosevelt
If you want something said, ask a man; if you want
something done, ask a woman
Margaret Thatcher
You are all you've got
If you want to sacrifice the admiration of Janis Joplin
many men for the criticism of one, go ahead,
get married
Katherine Hepburn
2
Bibliography
Sarah Pomeroy: Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves - Women in Classical Antiquity
(1975)
Margaret Ehrenberg: Women in Prehistory (1989)
Marija Gimbutas: Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 6500-3500 B.C. (1974)
M.Lefkowitz and M.Fant: Women’s Life in Greece and Rome (1982)
Gay Robins: Women in Ancient Egypt (1993)
Shulamith Shahar: The Fourth Estate - A History of Women in the Middle Ages (1983)
Emilie Amt: Women¹s Lives in Medieval Europe (1993)
Georges Duby, Michelle Perrot, etc: Histoire des Femmes en Occident (1992)
Richard Wrangham: Demonic Males (1996)
Francis Dahlberg: Woman the Gatherer (1983)
Elizabeth Wayland Barber: Women's Work - The First 20,000 Years - Women, Cloth and
Society in Early Times (1995)
Merlin Stone: When God Was a Woman (1976)
Raey Tannahill: Sex in History (1980)
Miriam Koktvedgaard Zeitzen: Polygamy: a cross-cultural analysis (2008)
Nikki Keddie: Women in the Middle East: Past and Present (2007)
Robert Lingat: Les sources du droit dans le système traditionnel de l'Inde (1968)
Suzanne Bianchi: Changing Rhythms of American Family Life (2006)
Stephanie Countz: Marriage, a History (2005)
3
Marilyn Skinner: Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture (2005)
Index
• From the Mother Creator to the Male Tyrant Gods
• Mesopotamia
• Egypt
• Persia to Palestine
• India
• China
• MesoAmerica
• Greece
• Rome
• Early Christianity
• Islam
• Medieval India
• Europe from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Age 4
• 20th Century
Women in Pre-history
• Venus of Willendorf
– Prototype of a female figurine found across an
area of 2,000+ kms
(Willendorf, Austria,
30-20,000 BC)
(Brassempouy,
France,
27-20,000 BC)
5
Women in Pre-history
• Catal Huyuk
– Female figurines
– Prominence of women in Çatal Hüyük
society and culture
– ”Women reigned supreme in religion, law
and custom” (Marija Gimbutas)
A 12cm figurine of a woman on a throne
with two leopards on either side of her,
the head of the baby already visible
(Catal Huyuk, 5000BC)
6
Women in Pre-history
• Mother Goddess?
– Figurines of Catal Huyuk, Turkey
– Figurines of Jericho, Palestine
– Munhata’s goddess, Jordan (6,000 BC)
Munhata, 6000 BC
– Figurines of Badari, Egypt (4,000 BC)
– From the Syrian coast to the Zagros Japan, 2,500 BC
mountains from 3,600BC
– Figurines of Niniveh, Iraq
– Figurines of Hagar Qim, Malta (3,000 BC)
– Figurines of the Indus Valley (2,300 BC)
– Xiwangmu (“Western mother”) of China (at
least 1,700 BC)
– Amaterasu (sun goddess of Japan)
7
Badari, 4,000 BC Indus Valley, 2,500 BC
Women in Pre-history
• Mother Goddess?
Cyprus, 2500 BC (Getty Villa) Crete, 4500 BC Malta, 3000 BC
(Heraclion Museum) (Heraclion Museum)
8
Women in Pre-history
• Mother Goddess?
– Female figurines dominate art for almost
30,000 years
– Only major exception: Persia!
9
Women in Pre-history
• The female brain reaches full maturity between 21 and
22 years of age. The male brain does not reach full
maturity until about 29. ("Sexual Dimorphism of Brain
Developmental Trajectories During Childhood and Adolescence“,
the world's largest study of brain development in children,
conducted by the National Institutes of Health - NeuroImage,
volume 36, number 4, pages 1065-1073, July 15 2007)
• Most people died before 25 in prehistoric societies
10
Women in Pre-history
• The women in ancient communal societies lived
together, practicing their religion together as a
fundamental way of life
Borneo 11
Women in Pre-history
• Diet of prehistoric humans: mostly plant food (meat was
scavenged). Meat by hunting only provides occasional
feast, while plants (gathered by women) constitute the
staple food. Thus woman the gatherer may have been
more important than man the hunter as a food provider
Yemen 12
Malawi
Women in Pre-history
• The first tool: the sling
13
Women in Pre-history
• Cooking
– In most primitive societies women cook for men
– A woman cooking for a man means that they are
engaged
– The husband-wife bond is sometimes more exclusive
for food than for sex (you can cheat with another man
but not cook food for another man)
– Cooking allowed humans to absorb more energy and
freed them from time-consuming chewing
– Cooking (fire) is easy to detect. The cook needed
protection: man the food guard and woman the food
provider
– Origin of the human household? 14
Women in Pre-history
• Women's ancient role in cloth-making made them
crucial to the survival of humans and to the developing
economic system
15
Women in Pre-history
• Women in Central Asia
Turkmenistan
Osh market
16
Women in Pre-history
• Ownership
– Farming society
– Value of labor
– An animal is a good
– A man is a good
– A woman is a good
– Society as a whole is a good
• Different forms of the same concept: ownership
– Domestication of animals
– Monandry (one husband only)
– Slavery
– Religion 17
Women in Pre-history
• Domestication, monandry, religion and slavery
emerge at about the same time
RELIGION MONANDRY
SLAVERY DOMESTI-
CATION
18
Women in Pre-history
Modern
• Monogamy: both women and men have western
only one spouse at a time civilization
• Monogyny: a man has only one spouse at a
See polyandry
time (a woman can have many)
• Monandry: a woman has only one spouse Majority of
at a time (a man can have many) pre-Greek
• Polygamy: both men and women can have civilizations,
many spouses at a time Jews, Islam,
• Polygyny: a man can have many wives at a ?
time
• Polyandry: a woman can have many See monandry
husbands at a time
19
Polyandry
• Polygamy in nature
– The great apes (gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees)
practice polygyny (many wives)
– Gibbons are monogamous
– Bonobos are polygamous
– Mammals: when males of a species are much larger
than females (gorillas, bisons), polygyny (many
wives) is common
– Mammals: when the females are larger than males,
polyandry (many husbands) is more likely
– Mammals: only 3% of mammalian species are
socially monogamous (15% of primate species)
– Birds: 90% of bird species are socially monogamous
– Insects: polyandry (many husbands) widespread 20
Polyandry
• Polyandry among humans
– Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan
– India (Zanskar, Ladakh, Toda of South India, Nairs
of Kerala, the Nymba and Pahari of North India)
– Sri Lanka
– China (the Mosuo of Yunnan), Mongolia
– Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania
– Guanches of the Canary Islands
– Surui of northwestern Brazil
Polyandry
• Polyandry among humans
– Urukagina of Lagash (ca. 2300 BC) bans polyandry
condemning the woman taking multiple husbands to
public stoning.
The Male Principle
• It is obvious who your mother is
• For a long time it may not have obvious at all who
one’s father was.
• One of the most important discoveries of all times:
sex and pregnancy are related.
• Before that discovery, a woman knew which were
her children, but a man didn't. Therefore it made
sense that society was matriarchal.
• After that discovery, the man had a way to know
which were his children: keep the woman from
having sex with anyone else.
Humans are Unique
• Unique to humans and chimps (Wrangham):
– Patrilineal, male-bonded communities
– Women move to neighboring groups
– Male-initiated territorial aggression
– Rate of male chimps that die of violence: 30%
– Rate of men in primitive tribes who die of violence:
30%
– Chimps and humans (that eat nuts, fruits and meat)
have to travel to find food (unlike bonobos that eat
leaves)
– Travel slows down females that have to carry and
nurse the infants
24
Humans are Unique
• Unique to humans and chimps:
(Richard Wrangham)
25
Women in History
• Map
26
Mesopotamia/Egypt
• Organized religion began as matriarchal religion
• Adoption of a sedentary lifestyle because of agriculture
may have fundamentally reoriented society towards
patriarchal organization
• The rise of city-states made war more important than
fertility
• Separation of public life and private life
– Administrative and military organization by men
– Domestic and agricultural organization by women
• Urbanization dramatically precipitated gender inequality
27
Women in Mesopotamia
• Ur
28
Women in Mesopotamia
• Mother goddess: yearly renewal of life, both mother
and bride
– The goddess Nammu, who had no beginning in
time, created the world and all living creatures
– Ninhursaga, goddess of birth (Kesh)
• Male triad/ divine aristocracy (2500 BC)
– Enlil, dwelling in Nippur, becomes the greatest of
the gods, and the god who punishes people
– Anu: god of the sky, head of pantheon
– Enki/Ea: god of irrigation waters (Eridu)
• Male divine tyranny (2000 BC)
– Marduk, god of Babylon, replacing Enlil
29
Women in Mesopotamia
• Mother goddess
– The young male god dies annually and
has to be rescued by the old mother
goddess every year
• Sumeria: Inanna and Dumuzi
• Later: Descent of Ishtar to the
underworld to “resurrect” Tammuz
– Inanna/Ishtar = source of regeneration
Ishtar, leading a king by the
– Tammuz/Dumuzi (husband of Ishtar) = hand (1700 BC)
agent of the regeneration
– This event brings about the revival of
life in nature (and, later, in humankind)
30
Women in Mesopotamia
• Sumeria (3500-2000 BC)
– Women were free to go out to the
marketplaces, buy and sell, attend to
legal matters for their absent men,
own their own property, borrow and
lend, and engage in business for
themselves
– Priestesses and princesses could
read and write
– Several city-states had a goddess as
the chief deity
The Burney Relief of an
unknown female deity 31
(1800 BC - British Museum)
Women in Mesopotamia
• Temple of the goddess Bau: Lagash, 2350 B.C.
– The temple was run by chief priestess Shagshag
– 1000 persons employed year round
– Her domestic staff consisted of:
• 150 slave women: spinners, woolworkers,
brewers, millers, and kitchen workers
• One female singer, several musicians
• 6 women who ground grain for feeding pigs
• 15 cooks
• 27 other slaves doing menial work
• Brewery: 40 men and 6 females
• One wet nurse, one nursemaid
• One hairdresser
32
Women in Mesopotamia
• Enheduanna (2300 BC)
– Daughter of king Sargon of Akkad
– High priestess of the Moon-God temple of Ur
– First known female poet in history
"I, Enheduanna, the highest priestess. I carried the
ritual basket, I chanted your praise.
Now I have been cast out to the place of lepers.
Day comes and the brightness is hidden around me.
Shadows cover the light, drape it in sandstorms.
My beautiful mouth knows only confusion.
Even my sex is dust."
33
Women in Mesopotamia
• Laws in the Hammurabi Code (Babylonia,
18th c BC)
– "If a married lady who is dwelling in a
man's house sets her face to go out of
doors and persists in behaving herself
foolishly wasting her house and belittling
her husband, they shall convict her." (Law
#141)
– "If a husband neglects his wife, she shall
take her dowry and go back to her father's
house." (#142)
– Dowry
34
Women in Mesopotamia
• Sammuramat (9th c BC)
– Assyrian queen
– Sammuramat accompanied her husband into
battle, greatly expanded Babylonia's control over
neighboring territories, irrigated the flatlands
between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and
modernized the capital Babylon (including the
famous gardens)
35
Women in Egypt
• Egypt
36
Women in Egypt
• Mother goddess (pre-dynastic)
– Oldest deities: Horus is associated
with the king, Hathor with the queen
– Hathor virgin mother of all gods
(notably of Re/Ra)
– A cow bearing the sun disk
between her horns
– All subsequent goddesses (e.g.,
Horus the falcon and
Isis) were aspects of Hathor Hathor the cow
– Queens and noblewomen wore a
menit when officiating rites for
Hathor (menit necklace is prominent
in Egyptian art)
37
Women in Egypt
• Isis
– First mentioned in the 5th dynasty (2494-2345 BC)
– Sister and wife of Osiris
– Isis taught Osiris the secrets of agriculture
– Horus becomes the son of Osiris and Isis
– Isis resurrected Osiris via Horus
– Cult of Isis spread throughout the Hellenistic and
Roman world (sanctuaries in Roma and Pompei)
38
Women in Egypt
• Maat
– Goddess that personifies cosmic harmony and a
model for human behavior
– Justice personified by goddess Maat
– Chief justice was the high priest of Maat
– All judges were also priests of Maat
39
Women in Egypt
• Nuut
– Late Egyptian age (Graeco-Roman)
– Mother of Osiris and Isis
– Swallows the stars and gives birth to the sun
40
Women in Egypt
• Sexual equality
– The throne descended through the female line
– Most queens were sisters of the king
– Immortality for the queen
– Female priests
– Women could own property
– No dowry
– Unless a will stated otherwise, estates were divided
equally among all of their children, both sons and
daughters
41
Women in Egypt
• Sexual equality
– The Egyptians viewed their universe as a complete
duality of male and female
– Female deity Maat permeates the universe and
provides cosmic harmony
– Queens portrayed executing prisoners or firing
arrows at enemies
– Female graves containing weapons are found
throughout the three millennia of Egyptian history
– Financial independence
42
Women in Egypt
• Women’s rights
– Inherited their parents’s fortune even after marriage
– Share equally with their husband any wealth acquired
within their marriage
– Conduct business on their own
– Own and sell property
– Represent themselves in court
– Leave their wealth to whomever they wish
– Adopt children
– Keep their own name after their marriage
– Work at jobs other than being a housewife
– Seek any employment they are qualified for 43
Women in Egypt
• Musicians and dancers
44
Women in Egypt
• Female pharaohs
– Neithikret (c.2148-44 BC), first female ruler of
Egypt
– Sobeknefru (c.1787-1783 BC), second female
ruler
45
Women in Egypt
• Hatshepsut
– Queen of Egypt, 15th c. B.C.
– Daughter of the god Amon-Re
– Peaceful reign promoting trade and the arts
– Her temple at Deir el-Bahri (west of Thebes)
• Nefertiti
– Queen of Egypt, 14th c. B.C.
– Wife of Akhenaton, who worshiped a new
religion honoring only one god, Aten
– Later rejected this religion, backing her half-
brother who re-established the sun-god Amon
– Her beauty was immortalized in many
sculptures
46
Women in Persia
• Persepolis
47
Women in Persia
• Mazdaism (Zoroastrianism)
– Angel hierarchy has feminine spirits
– Three of the seven Amesha Spentas )“Holy
Immortals”) who stand next to Ahura Mazda are
female
• Armaiti (devotion, daughter of Mazda, mother of
all humankind)
• Ameretat (immortality)
• Haurvatat (perfection, life after death)
48
Between Persia and Greece
• Middle East
Women in Syria
• Queen Shibtu of Mari (18th c BC),
wife of Zimri-Lim
• Goddess before 1,400 BC:
– The Northwestern Ishtar: "Jahweh and his asherah"
• Hittites (1500 BC): El and his (from Kuntillet, Sinai, 800 BC)
wife Ashera
• Canaanites (1400 BC -
800BC): Baal and his wife Anat
• Jews (800 BC): Yahweh and
his wife Asherah
50
Women in Phoenicia
• Trinity (1,200 BC)
– The father El/Baal, creator of the universe
– The son Baal/Melqart, responsible for the annual
cycle of vegetation
– The heavenly mother Astarte/Ashera/Baalat,
protector of the homes
51
Women in Judaism
• Jews (800 BC): Yahweh and his wife Asherah
• Jeremiah (44:15-19, 7:17-18) denounces the people
who worship "the Queen of Heaven”
• King Josiah (600BC) destroys the statue of Asherah in
the temple and expels the sacred prostitutes from the
temple (Chronicles 34:3-7)
• Genesis: God creates Eve from a rib of Adam
• Genesis: human race falls because of Eve
52
Women in Judaism
• Almost all prophets are male (48) except
– Miriam (Exodus 15:20)
– Deborah (Judges 4 & 5, 12th c BC)
– Huldah (2 Kings 22:14; 2 Chronicles 34:22)
– Noadiah (Nehemiah 6:14)
– Sarah (not a prophet but wife of Abraham)
– Hagar (16th BC), the Egyptian handmaid of Sarah,
wife of Abraham
53
Women in Judaism
• Jews (800 BC):
– Jezebel, Phoenician wife of king Ahab, worships
the Canaanite god Baal (“a wicked, shameless
woman”)
54
Women in Judaism
• The commandments are only for men
(e.g. “Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour's wife”) as women are mere
property (“Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour's house, nor your
neighbour's wife, nor his ox, nor his
ass, nor any thing that is thy
neighbour's”)
Oldest papyrus fragment of Ten
Commandments (2nd c BC)
55
Women in Judaism
• Polygyny (many wives) tolerated
– Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines
(1 Kings 11:3)
– David had many wives and concubines (2
Samuel 5:13)
• Nowhere does the Old Testament mandate
monogamy
• Palestine still polygamous in Roman times
56
Women in Judaism
• Poetry
– “The Song of Deborah” is the earliest extant
example of Hebrew poetry (and one of the oldest
passages of the Old Testament)
57
Women in Judaism
• Virginity
– A recurring theme throughout the Old
Testament mainly in foreign translations
• bethulah, a woman still living in her father's
house (often translated as "a virgin”)
• `almah, an unmarried young woman (often
translated as "a virgin”)
– The Greek ideal of virginity as possessing a
high religious value is foreign to true Jewish
thought
58
Women in Judaism
• Virginity
– Deuteronomy 22:21 (6th-5th c BC) seems to
prescribe chastity before marriage
• “If the woman that was married as a virgin
was not found to be one she was to be
stoned to death at her father's door”
(paraphrase)
59
Women in Crete
• A matriarchal religion: the gods were all female
• Monotheism?
• No fortification, no depiction of warriors
• Palace society
– Emphasis not on tombs, temples or forts, but
on comfort and luxury
Women of Crete
The goddess
60
Women in Phrygia (Anatolia)
• Cybele (the Earth Mother, related to
the Greek Gaia and the Minoan Rhea)
Phrygians of Anatolia 750-546 BC: Cybele 61
Istanbul Museum
Legendary Queens
• Old Testament: Queen of Sheba
– Ethiopia: Makeda, wife of Solomon, mother of
Menelik I, first emperor of Ethiopia
– Yemen: Bilqis
• Plato’s Timaeus and Critias
– Antinea, queen of Atlantis, matriarchal ruler
62
Women in India
• India
Women in India
ARYANS
• Pre-Aryan India (2500 BC)
– Figurines of the Indus Valley
– Mother-goddess worship predating
the Aryan migration and the Vedic
religion
– Pre-Aryan Indus valley culture DRAVIDIANS
worshipped primarily female
fertility goddesses
– Aryans (nomadic and warriors)
focused on male sky deities
– South India (mostly non-Aryan)
played an important role in the
development of goddess worship
64
Indus Valley, 2,700 BC
Women in India
• Rig Veda (Aryan India, 1,500 BC)
– None of the goddesses comparable to even
second-tier male gods, but some may be the
original elements of Devi worship
• Prthivi the earth (mother figure related to the male god
Dyaus)
• Usas the dawn (mother figure who rouses life and sets
things in motion)
• Aditi mother of the gods (abstract goddess, mentioned
nearly eighty times in the Rig-Veda at no time as a
consort to any of the gods)
• Vac the speech (abstract goddess, she enables one to
hear, see, grasp and then express in words the true
nature of things)
65
Women in India
• Rig Veda (Aryan India, 1,500 BC)
– ”The mind of woman cannot be disciplined.
She has very little intelligence ” (Rig Veda
8:33:17)
66
Women in India
• Mentioned, tolerated and even prescribed by the
Vedas:
– Child Marriage
– Dowry
– Bride-Burning (e.g., if the dowry is insufficient,
about 5,000 yearly in the 1990s)
– No Property
– Sati/ Widow-Burning (upon the death of the
husband)
– No divorce
– No re-marriage
67
Women in India
• Female philosophers in the holy books:
– Gargi Vachaknavi (three of the oldest of the
Upanishads, the Bṛihadaraṇyaka, 700 BC)
– Sulabha (an ascetic Yogic wanderer, who wins
a lengthy philosophical debate against the
philosopher king Janaka in the epic
Mahabharata, 2nd c AD)
68
Women in India
• Vedic India
– Between the Vedas and the Puranas (5th c AD)
little literary material relating to goddess worship
• a Buddhist monument at Sanchi (1st BC)
• a temple to the goddess Kanya Kumari at the
southern tip of India (1st c AD)
69
Women in India
• Manusmrti (100 BC)
– Vedas: Women can even be deities
– Ramayana and Mahabharata: Positive roles
– Manusmrti: Decline in the status of women
70
Women in India
• Manusmrti (100 BC)
– "Men must make their women dependent day and
night, and keep under their own control those who
are attached to sensory objects. Her father guards
her in childhood, her husband guards her in youth,
and her sons guard her in old age. A woman is not fit
for independence." -- 9:2-4
– "A thirty-year-old man should marry a twelve-year-old
girl who charms his heart, and a man of twenty-four
an eight-year-old girl” -- 9:94
– "A virtuous wife should constantly serve her husband
like a god, even if he behaves badly, freely indulges
his lust, and is devoid of any good qualities" -- 5:147-
71
164
Women in India
• Visnusmrti (8th c AD but based on preexisting text)
– "Now the duties of a woman:
• To live in harmony with her husband
• To show reverence to her mother-in-law,
father-in-law, to elders, to divinities, and to
guests
• ...
• To remain subject, in her infancy, to her
father; in her youth, to her husband; and in
her old age, to her sons.
• After the death of her husband, to preserve
her chastity, or to ascend the pile (funeral
pyre) after him” -- Visnusmrti 25:1-17.
72
Women in India
• Vedic India
– Devi
• Shiva’s wife
• Shiva and Devi are complementary aspects
of Brahman
• Good manifestations: Uma as ‘light’; Parvati
‘the mountaineer’; and Jaganmata ‘the
mother of the world’.
• Evil manifestations: Durga, Kali, Chandi,
Bhairavi
• First appearance as Durga, a warrior
73
Women in India
• Vedic India
– Durga
• A manifestation of the goddess Devi or
Shakti
• She was created by Brahma, Vishnu and
Shiva, and embodies their collective energy
(shakti).
• They created her to slay the buffalo-demon
Mahisasura, whom they were unable to
overcome.
74
Women in India
• Devi
Durga killing the bull,
Mahamallapuram,
7th c
Kali, 12th c
(Delhi Museum)
Parvati, 10th c
Mother Goddess (Metropolitan Museum) 75
Chennai, 10th c
Women in India
• Polygamy not banned by “hinduism” (Vedas,
Manusmrti) but rarely practiced throughout history
• Polyandry (many husbands) in the “Mahabharata”
(the Pandavas are married to one common wife,
Draupadi)
76
Draupadi with her five husbands (the Pandava princes)
76
Women in India
• Women in literature
– Banabhatta/ Bana (North India, 59#): "Kadambari"
(6##)
– Subandhu (North India, 6##): "Vasavadatta" (6##)
– Andal (South India, 8##): “Nachiar Tirumozhi”
77
77
Women in China
• China
78
Women in China
• Nvwa
– Nvwa is the ancestor of mankind
– She married her brother, emperor Fuxi, and they
made many human children
• Guanshiyin/ Guanyin Pusa
– Guanyin is the only buddha who is worshipped in
households
– “If we Chinese pray, generally we only pray to
Guanyin Pusa, who is considered our goddess of
mercy, in charge of our real happiness”
• Xiwanmu/ Queen Mother of the West
– First mass religious movement (Han dynasty)
79
Women in China
• Confucian revolution (5th BC)
– Confucian teachings have enshrined in people's
heart for more than two thousand years that women
are inferior to men, and women should be
subservient to men
– Concubines common among rich men
– Emperors have many consorts, frequently
protagonists of palace intrigue
– The emperor was attended by an army of wives and
concubines with a tightly defined rotation of duty
– Foot-binding
80
Women in China
• Politics
– Empress Lu (195-180 BC), second emperor of the
Han dynasty (wife of the first one)
– Empress Wang/ Xiaoping (8 BC), deposed by her
father Wang Mang
– Empress dowager Liang Na (144-150)
– Empress Wu Zetian (reigned 655-705)
– Yang Kuei-fei (born 719), concubine of emperor
Hsuan-tsung , the most famous beauty in Chinese
history
81
Women in China
• Writers
– Ban Zhao (45-116 CE), who completed the Book of
Han
– Yu Xuanji/Yu Hsuan-chi, poet (born 844)
82
Women in Meso-America
Women in Meso-America
• Matriarchate of Xochitecatl (1000-400 BC)?
84
Women in Meso-America
• Matriarchate of Teotihuacan (150 BC)?
85
Women in Meso-America
ZAPOTEC
• Fewer and fewer
female deities after
500 AD
VERACRUZ
AZTEC
86
Women in Meso-America
• Very few female representations in
Maya cities (100-900 AD )
• When hieroglyphic texts mention
women, it is usually in the context of
being either someone's mother or
someone's wife
Oldest known female stela
(Naachtun, 5th c AD)
Everywhere
• Witchcraft
– Witches exist in all popular traditions (Europe, Africa,
Asia and the Americas)
• Egypt and Babylonia: witches (both white and
black magic)
• Vedic India: witches (yogini) performing black
magic (abhichara)
• Judaism: witches condemned in the Old
Testament (Deuteronomy 18:11-12; Exodus
22:18)
– Women were traditionally the repository of white
magic (folk medicine)
– Fear of women’s power to do also black magic
88
Piero Scaruffi
www.scaruffi.com
• A Herstory of Women:
– Part 1: Prehistory and Early History
– Part 2: From Greece to the Middle Ages
– Part 3: Renaissance and Enlightenment
– Part 4: 20th and 21st centuries
89
Piero Scaruffi
www.scaruffi.com
90
