Gender Roles
Men and women performed separate but equal tasks: "males produce food by agricultural labor, but females process the products of the field to make them edible."
In addition to raising deer when necessary, the duties of women were embedded in the culture’s rich tradition, including its religion. Women held important everyday roles in this aspect of life. While young boys were being taught hunting skills, "the girl was trained in the household, and she was taught how to keep the domestic religious shrines."
Women were associated with the ritual practice of religion, as well as the actual beliefs themselves. The Moon Goddess is one of the most prominent gods in the Maya pantheon. Through her relations with the other gods, she was able to produce the Maya population. The local rulers would then claim descent from the Moon Goddess.
Gender in ancient Maya art is ambiguous; it is difficult to ascertain the gender of some figures simply because one couldn’t survive without the other. In some images of heir recognition, this duality is explicit: there is a male figure on one side of the newly-anointed, and a female figure on the other side.
Read more about this topic: Gender In Maya Society
Famous quotes containing the words gender and/or roles:
“Most women of [the WW II] generation have but one image of good motherhood—the one their mothers embodied. . . . Anything done “for the sake of the children” justified, even ennobled the mother’s role. Motherhood was tantamount to martyrdom during that unique era when children were gods. Those who appeared to put their own needs first were castigated and shunned—the ultimate damnation for a gender trained to be wholly dependent on the acceptance and praise of others.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“There is a striking dichotomy between the behavior of many women in their lives at work and in their lives as mothers. Many of the same women who are battling stereotypes on the job, who are up against unspoken assumptions about the roles of men and women, seem to accept—and in their acceptance seem to reinforce—these roles at home with both their sons and their daughters.”
—Ellen Lewis (20th century)