Essay on Gender Inequality in the Song of Songs - 5212 Words

Gender Inequality in the Song of Songs INTRODUCTION Postcolonial Feminist Theory has taught us to look beyond the confines of narrow cultural lenses as we seek to understand the diversity of gendered experience. I believe it is even more empowering to go one step further and to look not only cross-culturally but also cross-temporally. In America, when the general population tries to articulate what traditional female gender roles were, it seems they often describe those prescriptions for being lady-like from the Victorian Era, 1950s post-war America, or maybe limited snapshots of the Middle Ages, like chivalry codes and chastity belts. Accordingly women were, supposedly and stereotypically, traditionally passive and acquiescent.†¦show more content†¦The Song of Songs is a work of unknown origins, perhaps written by women, which somehow landed in the Hebrew Bible. It is an egalitarian Near Eastern love poem that challenges virtually every description of traditional gender roles in romantic relationships, if one looks to stereo types of womanhood in Medieval Europe, the Victorian Era, or the 1950s, for example, to define traditional. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND If we are to look at the Song of Songs as a document or documents that hold/s cultural or gender cues, it is useful to approach the work with some historical understanding about it. This is especially true because there has been and still is so much disagreement about the Songs origin, authorship, purpose--and even genre. Seeing that there is no clear consensus among the experts can liberate and empower the lay reader to feel that his or her own ideas are valid. Traditionally, the Song of Songs was said to be allegorical. The only love poetry in the Bible, and certainly the only pro-woman erotica, it was justified as being representative of Gods love for Israel. Many have speculated that its origins are older than the rest of the Bible, and lie in pagan fertility rites of the region: Was it a liturgy to Ishtar, or associated with the Adonis-Tammuz cult of ancient Palestine? Could it have been liturgy for the spring festival of the Canaanites, celebrating Astarte and Baal as the lovers? Most contemporary scholars nowShow MoreRelatedWe Didn t Start The Fire, By Billy Joel888 Words   |  4 Pages music has inevitably found ways to challenge power and power structures around the world. Music has found a way to use not only lyrics, but also the gender of musicians and genres of music to oppose powerful entities. Throughout music s long lived history, lyrics have been the most obvious example of musical oppositions to power. 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