Medieval Women

Women "inferior" to Men

The main reason that women were titled "inferior to men" is because of the passage in the Bible, Genesis 3:16, that says, "she shall be under the man's power." Other reasons that people justify thinking women are inferior to men is because of the way we as women were created. God created us to be man's help mate, supporter and encourager. Unfortunately, in many area's in the world, these characteristics of women tend to work towards our disadvantage. I do think that these misconceptions about women are still very prevelant even today. Although we have come so far as a country and we as people have been given such amazing opportunities, I still can see in certain mentalities that women are looked down upon as the lesser gender. I think this is easily detected in the mentality of the men around us. I think that certian men think that we as women are replaceable and are just emotionally driven burdens that are only good for one thing, to give them sex. I do not place all of the responsibility on the men because, we as women have become blinded to who GOD created us to be and are living under the burdens of these lies around us.

I think that we as a people tend to think women are inferior to men because of the culture around us. We live in a culture where value comes from your success. Success depends on how much money you are making. I strongly believe that although we as women are capable and are given the ability to work and make money to support our family, I do believe that a mast majority of that responsibility should be the husbands. Therefore, when a woman is at home with her children or is only working part time, the value the world places on her is less and I tend to think that for some men, they also think less of that woman. This mentality will lead to a road of women feeling inferior to men.

Arguments
Some of the arguments that could easily contradict the stereotypes and negative connotations given to women are either strong or weak. An example of a weak argument, found within the Medieval Women section of our text book, The Norton Anthology, Western Literature, states that women were made from man, and man was made in the image of God. Because women were not made from the image of God but from man, this makes them more inferior to man. This is a very weak argument because, many times within the Bible the word "man" is used in a way that includes all people, man and woman. I believe that when the Word of God says that man was created in the image of God, this is referring to both man and woman.

A strong argument that is contrary to the stereotypes placed on women is the story, Joan or Arc. This young woman, roughly 17 years old, completely opposes the mentality men had toward women, especially in the Middle Ages. As stated in the first parargraph on page 1843, men believed that women were emotion, body, nature and disorderely while men were intellect, culture and self-controlled. Joan of Arc was all 6 of these characteristics. She was a woman who not only was emotion driven but she also was very intellectual. She was self-controlled, brave and strong. This is a very strong argument that contradicts the stereotypes placed over women. No one should categorize another person based on their sex. Both men and women are human beings and because of that, we are able to make decisions and our decisions is what determines our character.