Women In The Transition Of Women

The time from 40,000 years ago to 12,000 years ago constitutes a chronological period where all humans were hunters and gatherers (Worlds, 7). Even when the agricultural period came to be, hunters and gatherers were still around and are still around even today. The transition and evidence from the transition was not inconclusive and had a clear negative impact on women. Women go through the transition from being equals with men and aiding in the hunting and gathering era to becoming mainly useful for childbirth to have more men brought into the world for farming and agriculture. Women were even discredited for discovering any farming techniques and taken from doing any physical labor even if they wanted to. They never had a choice to do more.
Women played a major role in the transition to crop cultivation. In the hunter-gatherer society, women were mostly the ones gathering plants which provided the main bulk of the diets so it makes sense for women to have learned about plants before men. Men usually were the ones hunting animals but although animal products form an important source of proteins in the diet, meat actually makes up a relatively small proportion of the food intake of these societies (Worlds, 15). During the climb of the agricultural society, men ended up doing much of the work, although in horticultural societies, women were responsible. “A study was of 104 horticultural societies existing today showed that in 50 percent of them, women were exclusively responsible for agriculture, in 33 percent of women and men shared various tasks and in only 17 percent were men wholly responsible for farming” (Worlds, 16). Men often helped to clear the plots and undergrowth and women usually how, sow, tend and harvest the crops (Worlds, 16). This offers the idea that women still did the work although they did not have to do the hardest labor. They generally had to be the ones
There was a switch between matrilocal residence and matrilineal descent to patrilocal residence and patrilineal decent. This means that instead of residing where the wife’s parents are, they resided where the husband’s parents were. In a matrilineal system, his sisters sons, rather than his own sons, inherit herds, land and equipment when he passes (Worlds, 19). Women were not involved in the land-based tasks, they would have learnt the basic skills from their mothers so it would have been more obvious for them also to inherit their land and equipment (Worlds, 19). Far less is at stake of loss in a matrilocal residence then a patrilocal. In the matrilineal system, the women were who inherited most when there was a