Gender Roles

5 Pages 1135 Words

Women’s roles have changed tremendously throughout history and literature. Women have changed from the roles of submissive servants to powerful beings with the ability to show their leadership. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, which took place in Mesopotamia, the women’s role starts at the bottom and they are steadily trying to ‘climb’ to the top. They had to stay at home with their children, caring for them, and were expected to remain loyal to their husbands. They had no power, had no ‘voice’ in the society in which they lived, and were seen as ‘civilizers’ (Berliner).
In the epic poem Gilgamesh, the role of the mortal woman was only to benefit and please men. Men had no consideration as to how she felt and gave her little or no recognition. A perfect example of a woman’s value is that the most respectable profession at the time this poem was written, was prostitution. The woman in this poem was portrayed in the form of a harlot. She was seen once and wasn’t even given a name. Because the harlot wasn’t given a name, and had very few speaking lines, I, and I’m certain anybody else that read Gilgamesh was unable to view the harlot as a person with emotions. She sorts of becomes and remains an object of male control. Each time she is spoken about in Gilgamesh, she is referred to as ‘woman’ as to say this is her name, and is commanded, not asked, to complete a task. When the trapper takes her to find Enkidu, whom she is seduce, he says to her, “Now woman, make your breasts bare, have no shame, do not delay but welcome his love”(p.64). The harlot is only an object of male pleasure. This also shows how women began to use sex as a weapon. The harlot changes Enkidu from a wild man, almost an animal, into a more human companion of Gilgamesh. She has the power that men need to transform him into a character that will benefit, instead of destroying, the society that they have created.
From the beginning of Enkidu’s...