I originally wasn’t going to respond to this post, but there’s so much revisionism, omissions, and outright inaccuracies here that I ultimately couldn’t ignore it, and that’s just when it comes to the Minoans and Hittites, which I’m most familiar with. As such, I assume your comments about the others are equally one-sided in order to serve the really odd, unnecessary narrative you have going on here.
First off, we know very little about the Minoans, since, y’know, Linear A hasn’t been deciphered yet, but from what we do know, they had an incredibly gender-segregated society, far more than we have today. In lists of family members, for example, the men and the women are in completely separate lists, which would be pretty weird for a place that didn’t have “arbitrary social constructs” like gender roles, and women seem to have been forbidden from most traditionally male jobs in their society.
Their art emphasized sexual dimorphism, and for you to assume that nakedness of the breasts in clothing trends implies the same thing for them that it would in our society today just adds to the evidence that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
They did have indoor plumbing, so at least you’re right about that.
For the Hittites it’s even worse, since their code of laws enforced separate punishments for crimes against men and women, with crimes against men carrying much more stringent penalties than crimes against women. Also, Hittite men wielded a large amount of legal power over their wives, which is indicated in their marriage ritual, where the man would “take” his wife so he could “possess” her afterward. Yes, it’s better than the ancient Greeks a thousand years later, but by how much is debatable.
Further, tawananna (queens) only ruled when their kings were away, or after they had died until the next king was chosen, and not a single queen is listed in Hittite histories as a legitimate successor to the dynasty at any point. Their role in court was mostly religious, and while they did conduct diplomatic relations with other countries, to act like Hittite queens were on par with Hittite kings in any way is completely false.
So we’re operating from what’s effectively misogynistic propaganda treated as a blueprint carried forward and reinforced in the historical record. It’s not “how it’s always been” at all. It’s just how it’s been recorded as having been by one side.
While there are definitely plenty of excellent examples of strong female leaders throughout history, and their achievements should certainly be celebrated, the ridiculous Bronze Age revisionism you’ve written here sounds much more like propaganda than what’s actually attested in the “historical record”.
First off, we know very little about the Minoans, since, y’know, Linear A hasn’t been deciphered yet, but from what we do know, they had an incredibly gender-segregated society, far more than we have today. In lists of family members, for example, the men and the women are in completely separate lists, which would be pretty weird for a place that didn’t have “arbitrary social constructs” like gender roles, and women seem to have been forbidden from most traditionally male jobs in their society.
There were distinct gender roles, all the way to the top (such as the lead religious figure as female and the lead ruling figure as male), but in accounting records where there was overlapping labor they were both paid the same (don’t need to know Linear A to read numbers).
For the Hittites it’s even worse
You’d be wise to keep in mind that these kingdoms cover a very long period of time when history and social norms shift around. A given individual in one generation does not reflect the society as a whole, but in turn the society at other periods doesn’t necessarily reflect all the individual generations within it.
We can’t look at America as a whole and use the records of women being denied the right to vote at one period of time to reflect a woman’s role in America in a different time.
The historical reality is that Paduhepa was co-signing the treaty of Kadesh with Egypt alongside her husband, when the Egyptian pharoh’s wife was not. Whether or not that was anomalous in the context of the entire Hittite empire is besides the point of whether or not at that point in time it was a political reality.
to act like Hittite queens were on par with Hittite kings in any way is completely false
I didn’t say that. But I did say that she cosigned the first treaty in the historical record, and I think you’ll have a hard time showing another example since where the wife of the ruler was co-signing a treaty unilaterally.
Their role in court was mostly religious
Here I think your modernism may be showing. In cultures where the chief deity was a goddess and the chief religious official for that goddess was the queen, you don’t think maybe in antiquity the impact that religious role would have had would be more than superficial?
For example, you have Akhenaten inscribing in the dedication of Amarna an assurance that his wife didn’t tell him to build the city there, but the Aten himself. So clearly at the time there were allegations that his wife, who had been depicted worshipping the Aten directly without her husband before this, was influencing his building of an entire new capital for the country.
Much like the paradigm outlined in Marinatos’s Minoan Kingship and the Solar Goddess, bringing us full circle to another society with empowered women within their society.
In fact, in pretty much every place you find one of the empowered women in antiquity there’s a connection to female deities.
So I think you underappreciate those “religious roles” in relation to the topic at hand.
I originally wasn’t going to respond to this post, but there’s so much revisionism, omissions, and outright inaccuracies here that I ultimately couldn’t ignore it, and that’s just when it comes to the Minoans and Hittites, which I’m most familiar with. As such, I assume your comments about the others are equally one-sided in order to serve the really odd, unnecessary narrative you have going on here.
First off, we know very little about the Minoans, since, y’know, Linear A hasn’t been deciphered yet, but from what we do know, they had an incredibly gender-segregated society, far more than we have today. In lists of family members, for example, the men and the women are in completely separate lists, which would be pretty weird for a place that didn’t have “arbitrary social constructs” like gender roles, and women seem to have been forbidden from most traditionally male jobs in their society.
Their art emphasized sexual dimorphism, and for you to assume that nakedness of the breasts in clothing trends implies the same thing for them that it would in our society today just adds to the evidence that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
They did have indoor plumbing, so at least you’re right about that.
For the Hittites it’s even worse, since their code of laws enforced separate punishments for crimes against men and women, with crimes against men carrying much more stringent penalties than crimes against women. Also, Hittite men wielded a large amount of legal power over their wives, which is indicated in their marriage ritual, where the man would “take” his wife so he could “possess” her afterward. Yes, it’s better than the ancient Greeks a thousand years later, but by how much is debatable.
Further, tawananna (queens) only ruled when their kings were away, or after they had died until the next king was chosen, and not a single queen is listed in Hittite histories as a legitimate successor to the dynasty at any point. Their role in court was mostly religious, and while they did conduct diplomatic relations with other countries, to act like Hittite queens were on par with Hittite kings in any way is completely false.
While there are definitely plenty of excellent examples of strong female leaders throughout history, and their achievements should certainly be celebrated, the ridiculous Bronze Age revisionism you’ve written here sounds much more like propaganda than what’s actually attested in the “historical record”.
There were distinct gender roles, all the way to the top (such as the lead religious figure as female and the lead ruling figure as male), but in accounting records where there was overlapping labor they were both paid the same (don’t need to know Linear A to read numbers).
You’d be wise to keep in mind that these kingdoms cover a very long period of time when history and social norms shift around. A given individual in one generation does not reflect the society as a whole, but in turn the society at other periods doesn’t necessarily reflect all the individual generations within it.
We can’t look at America as a whole and use the records of women being denied the right to vote at one period of time to reflect a woman’s role in America in a different time.
The historical reality is that Paduhepa was co-signing the treaty of Kadesh with Egypt alongside her husband, when the Egyptian pharoh’s wife was not. Whether or not that was anomalous in the context of the entire Hittite empire is besides the point of whether or not at that point in time it was a political reality.
I didn’t say that. But I did say that she cosigned the first treaty in the historical record, and I think you’ll have a hard time showing another example since where the wife of the ruler was co-signing a treaty unilaterally.
Here I think your modernism may be showing. In cultures where the chief deity was a goddess and the chief religious official for that goddess was the queen, you don’t think maybe in antiquity the impact that religious role would have had would be more than superficial?
For example, you have Akhenaten inscribing in the dedication of Amarna an assurance that his wife didn’t tell him to build the city there, but the Aten himself. So clearly at the time there were allegations that his wife, who had been depicted worshipping the Aten directly without her husband before this, was influencing his building of an entire new capital for the country.
Much like the paradigm outlined in Marinatos’s Minoan Kingship and the Solar Goddess, bringing us full circle to another society with empowered women within their society.
In fact, in pretty much every place you find one of the empowered women in antiquity there’s a connection to female deities.
So I think you underappreciate those “religious roles” in relation to the topic at hand.