Artifact 5- Male/Female Gender Health Gap

Reflective tag

Men and Women are both different externally and internally. So it only makes sense that there are a few differences in health and diseases between the sexes. When it comes down to surviving men are beat in about every category when it comes to health. This is because some of the biological, social, and behavioral factors effect men more than women.

Artifact 5

Men and women are different in many different ways which cause a gender gap in life expectancy in males and females. The gender gap in america went from 2 years in 1900 to 5.1 years in 2007. In other places the gap is even wider but pretty much everywhere it follows the same trend of females living longer then males. This gap is due to the biological, social, and behavioral differences between males and females.

Men and women share 22 chromosomes together but that last pair of chromosomes known as the sex chromosome is why we are so different. In females the pair of sex chromosomes are both X in a male there is an X and a Y. If a women has a disease on one of her X chromosomes it has the possibility to be counter balanced by her other X chromosome, a man doesn’t have that same possible protection. One thing that keeps the gap of life expectancy from being even bigger then it is the reproductive anatomy. Men and women prostate and breast cancers are pretty closely matched but women are 45 percent more likely to die from their disease then men are.

Looking on the more social side of things, women have a larger network of support then men by about 2.5 times. Men are stereo-typically seen as the worker who earns for the family which increases the amount of stress. The amount of stress from work also increases the risk of hypertension, heart attack, and stroke. As more women are entering the workplace the gender gap is closing.

Finally looking at things from a more behavioral side, men tend to do more risky things which increases there risk for trauma, injury or death. On top of the risky side of males they are also more aggressive which puts the people around him in harms way. A man is about four times more likely to die of a homicide then a female. But females are more likely to be victims of domestic abuse.

Late Greece

The statue of Athena is about 38 feet tall and dates back to about 296 BCE. Athena is a chryselephantine statue which means it is made of ivory and gold. Athena is housed in the Pathenon in Athens. Athena is the Goddess of wisdom and crafts. The statue holds Nike the Greek god of victory in her right hand and a shield with a snake sheltered underneath it in her left hand. On her head is the helmet decorated with a sphinx at the Apex and two pegasi one either side. The sphinx much like the snake represents rebirth. Her breastplate is adorned with snakes and the head of Medusa at the center. Athenas’ sandals were decorated with the mythical battle between centaurs and Lapiths. The base of the statue depicted scenes of the birth of Pandora.

The Erechtheion resides in Athens on the acropolis and dates back to between 421 and 405 BCE. The temple was used for housing Athena’s pet snake as well as a shrine for Athena herself located on the east side. The west side of the temple was dedicated to other gods and heroes such as Poseidon, Erectheus, Hephaestus, Voutus, Pandion, and Boutes. The north porch area is supported by ionic columns while the south porch area is supported by the Caryatids, the six maidens who danced yearly in honor of Artemis.

Ancient Greece and Aegean

 

www.oneonta.edu                                                                            www.visual-arts-cork.com

This is the temple of Hera which is located about 50 miles south of the modern city of Naples, Italy at Poseidonia around 550 BCE. This temple is dedicated to Hera the queen  of the gods in Greek mythology. There are three types of Greek architecture Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The type of architecture used in this is Doric which has fluted columns without bases resting on the stylobate and an unadorned capital. The columns also swell in the middle and contract toward the top giving a sense of upward lift. It was ultimately destroyed in the 4th century CE by an earthquake.

www.utexas.edu

This is Ajax and Achilles playing a game which was made by Exekias between 540 and 530 BCE. The type of pot is an Amphora which is an all purpose storage jar. The picture shows that both Ajax and Achilles are talking to each other because the words written coming out of their mouths. This shows Achilles winning the game by showing Achilles with the helmet on his head and Ajax with his helmet on his shield behind him. The artist creates a more three dimensional design by using the contours. On the pot there are no gods or kings, the focus instead rests on the heroic warriors.

Greek art tends to show a greater preference for humans instead of the gods. The temple dedicated to the gods however typically has some form of art dedicated to the god it is named after. The Greek art looks like it got a lot its art style off of the Egyptians.

Artifact 3- Gender and Culture

Reflective Tag

India has a huge gender gap between men and women brought about by specific gender roles within the culture. India is definitely based off a paternal society where women are seen more as objects then people. These ideals cause a dangerous environment for women through neglect, abuse, and murder.

Artifact 3

India has a very noticeable gender gap between males and females which causes problems primarily for women in that country. The women are seen as subservient to men and are meant to do work in the house. When women violate these roles they are often subject to threats, harassment, and murder. In some areas women do agricultural work, in these cases the women have a higher status then the domesticated women. It seems like there is a link between economic productivity and social status which is similar to chieftain and tribal communities.

The negative feelings toward females also leads to the neglect of girls through insufficient feeding and ignoring illness. A lot of the time these unwanted females die because of the neglect. Now that there is new technology such as ultrasound which can determine the sex of the baby inside of the womb the rate of abortion of female fetuses has increased. There are laws that make it illegal to use sonograms but those cases are rarely looked at so it doesn’t really stop doctors from administering the test.

The government has been trying to get rid of child marriage, sati, and dowry but these practices still remain problems even today. There are numerous reports of these outlawed practices especially having to do with dowry’s in spite of the Dowry Prohibition Act. Literacy rates are also very low in India being 24.8 percent of females can read and 46.5 percent of males. This makes it unlikely that these people are aware of the law and the people who are aware are given social pressure to follow with traditional behavior.

Artifact 2- The Global Gender Gap

Reflective Tag

The gender gap is something that typically effects women over the world in different ways. The gender gap can effect whether a women can get a job or an education and can even be dangerous. The reason for this gap is usually a culture issue brought about because of a society dominated by men.

Artifact 2

The gender gap is an issue throughout the world which typically effects women. The gender inequalities include whether they can get a job and how much they get payed, arranged marriages, violence, and discrimination. The United States is pretty good when it comes to discrepancy in education but places like India and most of Africa have more then a 16 percent difference between male and female secondary education levels. These numbers mostly have to do with the cultural role of females in those countries, “the female is meant to stay at home and do house chores.”

India and Africa also have a high maternal mortality rate, physical abuse, and trafficking of females. This probably stems from a lack of care for the females in the country and because of their roles as females which causes them to be seen as inferior to men. This idea of superiority causes negative feelings toward the opposite sex which is seen in how people dealt with people of a different race back in the day. The only real way to fix this gap is to make it so women aren’t considered inferior to men which is easier said then done considering the usual noticeable differences in physical strength and speed, pregnancy, and genitalia.

The one common thing between most of the countries is the preference of boys over girls. On a global gender gap report on May 2015 the United States was ranked #20, #1 being the best place to be a women. The top 10 in order from #1 to #10 were Norway, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Australia, and Belgium. A majority of those countries are northern European countries and all the bottom 10 are southern countries. This could be because a lot of the culture is based on region, looking at the European countries women are treated more as people instead of objects. Realizing women as equals instead of as inferior creatures would fix this gap in gender but that would require fixing an entire nations way of thinking.

Artifact 1- Sex vs Gender

Reflective Tag

Sex is a genetic difference in a species which characterizes them as either male, female or other. Gender is more of a social or cultural difference which can be determined by your physical appearance. Gender leads to constructed gender types based off of what people perceive that gender should be like, do, wear, or who they should be attracted to. As a child most parents tend to the conform to the idea of boy and girl colors and toys so that the child can shape into the roles they are given.

Artifact 1

Gender has many dimensions to it such as the psychological side which is how the boy or girl feels on the inside. Then there is the social side which are the beliefs that are held with each gender and the roles and responsibilities that come with it. The behavioral side deals with how a boy or girl expresses their identity in the way they dress or act.

Gender can vary over time such as the chinese foot binding or the corsets which damaged the body in order to fit the standard for women at the time. There are also varying gender roles in our own time between different cultures such as the Muslim garments which covers the women’s faces. For the people who go outside the lines of gender ridicule and threats of violence can be accompanied. Cross dressing can be done by both gay and straight people because of either social reasons or because they like wearing those types of clothes. In Afghanistan the cultural practice called bacha posh is when in a family without boys they choose a girl to live, dress, and behave like a boy.

Sex is what a person is born as based on his or her genes while gender is a cultural thing. A person born a male can have a female gender because of the way he acts or dresses. People who are born a certain sex have a lot of pressure to fit the gender roles that are supposed to be specific to them (boy play with cars while girls play with dolls). This separation at an early age tends to brainwash the kids into believing that the gender roles they were given are what they should aspire to be. This causes the separation of males and females socially which has been shown to cause a favoritism of males over females.

Ancient Egypt

File:The seated scribe.jpg

This is the Seated Scribe which dates back to 2450- 2325 BCE. The Seated Scribe was found near the tomb of Kai which was placed near the Pharaoh so that he could become the scribe for the Pharaoh in the afterlife. The statue is very naturalistic and lifelike, the face and body are very defined and almost look real. The face on the statue looks old and wise, the statue looks very attentive as if it is listening intently on what you have to say. The body looks well fed and lacks muscle which indicates power and wealth as well as a life free from hard labor. The pupils are offset in the iris which give them an illusion of being in motion. The fact that the statue is a scribe means that he is literate and was important because he could read and write.

This painting is called Ti Watching a Hippopotamus Hunt which dates back to 2450 to 2325 BCE. The painting is painted on limestone and is about 45 inches in height. The lines on the limestone are supposed to give the impression that you are watching through the reeds on the Nile. Ti was a court official whose job it was to oversee the hunt. On the painting he looks bigger then everyone else and is drawn in composite view which emphasizes his importance. Seth, the god of darkness was thought to have manifested himself into a hippo. The symbolic meaning of killing the hippo is ridding the afterlife of chaos which is why this was found in the tomb Ti. The men in the boat are just regular commoners and are shown in actions to show there lower status.

Ancient Near East

The two pieces of art I chose are the Female head and Iassamu.

Female Head (of goddess Inanna?)

The Female Head most likely comes from Uruk, Iraq in 3200 to 3000 BCE. The statue is only about 8 inches tall and is made up of marble. The eye sockets do not have eyes in them but the face is very realistic. The nose is damaged which could be just damage over time or it could be from people desecrating the statue. This statue head was made in the image of Inanna who was an important female deity known as the goddess of love and war (Kleiner). The chunks taken out of the head were believed to be used for wigs that researches believe to have been made out of gold leaf (Kleiner).

Lamassu is a 10 foot 2 inch statue of a winged lion with a human head found in Nimrud, Iraq between 883 and 859 BCE. From the front of the statue it looks like the statue is just standing in place, but if you look at it from the side it appears as if the statue is walking forward. The face of the man on the statue is very detailed, all the features on the face are very realistic. These giant statues were meant to guard the gates that lead to Sargon’s palace (Gardner).

Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Global History. Enhanced 13th ed. 1. Boston: Wadswort Cengage Learning, 2009. 33-34. Print.

Gardner, Helen, Fred S. Kleiner, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Global History. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.