Gender in Mesopotamia 2
I read another chapter of Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East, and one from Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean, both by Julia M. Asher-Greve. Let's have the first one first:
In my previous posting I was talking about the possibility that, for the Mesopotamians, gender was not defined by genitals but by dress, behaviour, occupation, behaviours, and so forth. Now in Sex and Gender (her chapter is titled "Decisive Sex, Essential Gender"), Asher-Greve remarks, "Sexual differences were not considered me... But qualities associated with sexual differences are listed as essences." (p 13) Further, marriage is not listed as a me, but kissing and intercourse are. (p 17) If that's right, it'd be a striking bit of evidence in that direction. "Because humans had sex differences and sex roles in common with deities and animals", she suggests, "sex differences were not considered" me, but "gender differences" were "because they make gender what it is". (p 21)
Depressingly, Asher-Greve states that proper gender behaviour was enforced not just by authority figures such as teachers, parents, and by the law, but also by "ridicule, insults, (peer) pressure... Women criticized each other for non-conforming behaviour and pressured themselves to behave in accordance with their gender role." (p 15) So there's something we have in common with the ancients, anyway. (It's striking that then, as now, "normal", "natural" gender behaviour had to be rigorously culturally enforced.)
Mesopotamian thinking about "physiological sex anomalies" was "paradoxical". In Enki and Ninmah, the goddess creates a human without sexual organs; like all the anomalous people she creates, this one is given a place in society, as the king's attendant. But at the same time, intersex children were omens of "miscarriage, death, and even calamity for the country", and may have been killed. (Asher-Greve suggests that, over time, attitudes changed, perhaps alongside the gradual reduction of women's status.)
Asher-Greve argues that historically, androgynous beings have been seen not as half-male and half-female, but as male creatures "incorporating feminine qualities and physicality". Discussing gender ambiguous foundation figures from Mesopotamia, she suggests they should be read as feminine men: kings who, as temple-builders and thus creators, were "perfect", incorporating the female. (She compares this to the feminised representation of Akhenaten.) In this way, the founders resembled the first human, who was created to work for the gods, and represented all humankind.
One thing I'm not clear about is how systematically archaeologists identify the gender of figures in ancient art. Is it a matter of taking figures where the gender is known (eg where there's accompanying text), working out their common characteristics, and then using those to type the unknown figures? Or is it more a matter of "Well, that looks like a woman to me"? Or a mixture of both? (I confess Asher-Greve doesn't provide enough data, especially not directly Mesopotamian evidence, to convince me of some of her extremely interesting ideas.)
The other chapter later!
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S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting (eds). Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriolgique Internationale, Helsinki, July 2-6, 2001. Compte rendu, Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale 47. Helsinki : Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002.
In my previous posting I was talking about the possibility that, for the Mesopotamians, gender was not defined by genitals but by dress, behaviour, occupation, behaviours, and so forth. Now in Sex and Gender (her chapter is titled "Decisive Sex, Essential Gender"), Asher-Greve remarks, "Sexual differences were not considered me... But qualities associated with sexual differences are listed as essences." (p 13) Further, marriage is not listed as a me, but kissing and intercourse are. (p 17) If that's right, it'd be a striking bit of evidence in that direction. "Because humans had sex differences and sex roles in common with deities and animals", she suggests, "sex differences were not considered" me, but "gender differences" were "because they make gender what it is". (p 21)
Depressingly, Asher-Greve states that proper gender behaviour was enforced not just by authority figures such as teachers, parents, and by the law, but also by "ridicule, insults, (peer) pressure... Women criticized each other for non-conforming behaviour and pressured themselves to behave in accordance with their gender role." (p 15) So there's something we have in common with the ancients, anyway. (It's striking that then, as now, "normal", "natural" gender behaviour had to be rigorously culturally enforced.)
Mesopotamian thinking about "physiological sex anomalies" was "paradoxical". In Enki and Ninmah, the goddess creates a human without sexual organs; like all the anomalous people she creates, this one is given a place in society, as the king's attendant. But at the same time, intersex children were omens of "miscarriage, death, and even calamity for the country", and may have been killed. (Asher-Greve suggests that, over time, attitudes changed, perhaps alongside the gradual reduction of women's status.)
Asher-Greve argues that historically, androgynous beings have been seen not as half-male and half-female, but as male creatures "incorporating feminine qualities and physicality". Discussing gender ambiguous foundation figures from Mesopotamia, she suggests they should be read as feminine men: kings who, as temple-builders and thus creators, were "perfect", incorporating the female. (She compares this to the feminised representation of Akhenaten.) In this way, the founders resembled the first human, who was created to work for the gods, and represented all humankind.
One thing I'm not clear about is how systematically archaeologists identify the gender of figures in ancient art. Is it a matter of taking figures where the gender is known (eg where there's accompanying text), working out their common characteristics, and then using those to type the unknown figures? Or is it more a matter of "Well, that looks like a woman to me"? Or a mixture of both? (I confess Asher-Greve doesn't provide enough data, especially not directly Mesopotamian evidence, to convince me of some of her extremely interesting ideas.)
The other chapter later!
__
S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting (eds). Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriolgique Internationale, Helsinki, July 2-6, 2001. Compte rendu, Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale 47. Helsinki : Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002.