IV. GENDER ROLES
A third facet of sexuality can be expressed with the phrase ―gender roles.‖
That is, what does a culture expect members of each gender to do? How should a man act, or what does one do to signify that one is a eunuch? What should a woman look like? It is my assumption that these roles are culturally situated, since a cursory examination of women and men around the world will reveal great differences
That is, what does a culture expect members of each gender to do? How should a man act, or what does one do to signify that one is a eunuch? What should a woman look like? It is my assumption that these roles are culturally situated, since a cursory examination of women and men around the world will reveal great differences
between how gender is performed in society. For example, men in some parts of the world can walk in public holding hands without anyone making assumptions about their sexual orientations. In the city of Atlanta, where I live, this action signifies erotic attachment, and thus one would assume that two men walking while holding hands were a homosexual couple.
Or, recently I had a conversation with a group of women from Burundi who were tending a small farm in a lot near my house in Decatur, Georgia. From these women, I learned that, in their culture, tending small plots of land to raise crops for the family‘s consumption is considered a woman‘s task, whereas the men, if they work in agriculture, tend to labor on large-scale farms. In my hometown, however, the predominant culture makes no assumptions about gender roles when it comes to tending small plots of land like many men in the United States, I raise tomatoes and no one thinks twice about that. Thus, an individual‘s actions do not communicate in an unambiguously universal sense about their gender. The ancient Near East was no different: in that cultural spectrum, for example, persuasiveness—the ability to get one‘s way using words — is an important element of what Israelites thought it was to ―be a man.‖
Or, recently I had a conversation with a group of women from Burundi who were tending a small farm in a lot near my house in Decatur, Georgia. From these women, I learned that, in their culture, tending small plots of land to raise crops for the family‘s consumption is considered a woman‘s task, whereas the men, if they work in agriculture, tend to labor on large-scale farms. In my hometown, however, the predominant culture makes no assumptions about gender roles when it comes to tending small plots of land like many men in the United States, I raise tomatoes and no one thinks twice about that. Thus, an individual‘s actions do not communicate in an unambiguously universal sense about their gender. The ancient Near East was no different: in that cultural spectrum, for example, persuasiveness—the ability to get one‘s way using words — is an important element of what Israelites thought it was to ―be a man.‖
I would not say that is shared by North Americans today ―manly‖ men are depicted in action films, for example, as terse. In the latest cinematic iteration of the Batman series, the titular character hardly delivers ten words per film. But perhaps the most interesting difference in gender roles between the modern West and the ancient Near East is this: many moderns imagine masculinity and femininity to be strict opposites without overlap. If a talkative male is not manly, then he must be womanly. If a weak man is not manly, he must then be womanly. Yet the ancient Near East may not have a zero-sum approach to gender roles. Manly and womanly characteristics could — and in many cases did — overlap. For example, persuasiveness was an exemplary characteristic for both sexes, as evidenced by Abigail in the story of King David.
One intriguing aspect of gender relations in ancient Israel is the disconnect between the ideal of gender roles and their actual enactment in everyday life. As Carol Meyers writes: ―Newer studies of traditional societies show that women‘s household economic roles, in both subsistence tasks and craft production, functioned in ways that contest our often unexamined but persistent notions of female dependency and patriarchal dominance. The work patterns and authority structures in premodern societies meant that daily life was rarely hierarchical along gendered lines…"
Thus it is important to ask of these ancient gender roles: what was the ideal, and what was the actual practice? And if we should seek to use these relations as some sort of model, which one should we use, and why?
There are, of course, other, many quite significant differences between the performance of masculinity in the ancient Near East and contemporary North America: perhaps most germane to this conversation, ancient Near Eastern masculinity assumed the ownership of female sexuality, even in monetary terms. This is part of the reason that ancient kings had concubines: it communicated power and virility, two key components of ancient masculinity. And control over these women‘s sexuality was the important point. For example, in or der to exert his manly authority during his usurpation of David‘s kingdom, for example, Absalom has intercourse with all of his father‘s concubines in sight of ―all Israel‖ (2 Sam 16:22).
Thus, the communication of masculinity involved the domination of others. It is important for us all to consider carefully what aspects of gender performance in ancient Israel we want to model, and what we want to abandon.
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