Women in Europe in the Middle Ages

The expected roles of women in Europe in the Middle ages were to be a daughter who grew up and then took care of her younger siblings. And then when they were old enough, they would be married off to then have children and tend to their children and husbands. Some women were also peasants. They were not expected to be resistant or have any opinions. Women were separated by social class. According to John Berger, "…men act and women appear." (Berger 47). This is basically explaining the male gaze upon women. Women were expected to cater to their husbands in the Middle Ages. Bell Hooks also described the gender roles of her house. She says how her brother was timid while she was aggressive. Hooks explains how her father expressed to them repletely that they were not acting how they were supposed to.

The role of women began to change around the Renaissance and 19th century. The Renaissance was when women gained more recognition as artists, although they were still discouraged. Women who were artist were not seen as equal to the other male artist even if their work was in fact better. This caused many women to publish their work under alias’. Male patriarchy was described as “a political system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence,” (Hooks, 18).

 

Artemisia Gentileschi's 1618 painting Judith Slaying Holofernes