Gender Roles

Monique Antoine in Gender roles, Subject and Power




A lot has changed since the Middle Ages with respect to women’s rights and their rights in the workplace. Honestly, we don’t know how good we have it now. in the Middle Ages, women were placed in the roles of being only for the home. They were looked at as the property of the men related to her and did not have any rights. The only place for a woman was at home or right next to the husband. Women were married off to be housewives and to just be emotionally available to just them. At all times, the woman was left at home. The home was where a woman belonged because according to men, they are too incompetent and weak to do anything else. Their chores include tending to the children, cleaning the house, cooking, and being a good housewife. Even though that is a hard enough burden to do 7 days a week with nearly no breaks, men always think that they have it better than them.

Imagine doing all of this by yourself with no help from others and plus holding down a job. This was the reality for most women who did this whether they were getting paid or not. This makes no sense because there is no stop time to take a break to be a mother and doing household chores and find the time to do a job. There was no cohesive balance for women.Obviously, men never had to worry about it, because according to the Middle Ages, that was left for the women to worry about. Men don’t care for the children and don’t care if the wife is tired, it is her responsibility to take care of it by herself.

In the Middle Ages, women were repressed to the point they weren’t happy with their own lives and can’t do anything they actually want to do which is work or even start their own career, make their own money and gain their own independence. Women who did work, especially in the art industry were extremely underappreciated by their male peers and they thought of their jobs as nothing more than a hobby like sewing and cross-stitch. Despite it takes years of experience and practice to get into these types of fields, men just think they are distracting to them and are not necessary for this field. They prefer women to be these quiet things that are only to be admired, not to be loud or demanding. Apparently doing just that makes you less feminine and woman like. So as a woman, if you want the job you either need to have exceptional art or just have a father that will teach you painting.

Judith slaying Holofernes

When women did succeed in art, their appreciation gets trampled or even underestimated by men in general. This woman Artemisia Gentileschi who was an amazing artist was attacked by a man who wouldn’t leave her alone. Sadly in the Middle Ages, women were known as property, so the only thing to make it right again as if the man, now a rapist, married her to restore her father’s property. Thankfully she doesn’t, but the fact that was some sort of solution is not okay. Not all women in the Middle Ages became an artist or were even oppressed.(Guerilla Girls 77?) This is not speaking on behalf of All women, but it is pretty close to what they wanted when it came to being more independent. They wanted to do outside jobs where they can make more money and be appreciated.

Self-portrait as the allegory

The roles of women have indeed changed since the Middle Ages. Women are allowed to do almost everything men can do but have severe limits, whiplash, negativity, shaming, and just plain unappreciation when it comes to art. This has been going on so much that women have to segregate themselves off in their own little support groups to get themselves help and give each other supplies and support (quote). This continues even into the 21st century where we have women’s studies classes and women aimed classes. Why are we segregating ourselves? What does this say about is women? It says that we cannot compete with the men, so we need softer, less harsh classes so we can stand a chance. We shouldn’t be segregating ourselves, we should be congregating with males and making art alongside them, not between 2 inches of concrete. 

Susanna and the elders

In the verse of being artists, these female roles have influenced many paintings such as (quote painting) which shows the simple life of being a housewife and also in most art made by a woman, it is segregated as feminine and women weren’t allowed to do anything masculine, whereas men can do both masculine and feminine without judgement. Men indeed repress women in their art because of the long trend of painting women being interested in the onlooker for their painting which is always a man. A bit of hypocrisy is the fact that men can paint both male and female nudes, but women cannot paint men nude(Berger 47). Despite all the progressive nature in the women’s side of view, there is still no progress in women’s art when it comes to congregating works by fellow women as well.


The Guerrilla Girls bedside companion to the history of Western art. Penguin, 1998.

Berger, John, and John Christie. I send you this cadmium red --: a correspondence between John Berger and John Christie. ACTAR, 2000.

by Monique Antoine