Sexual Revolutions: Gender and Labor at the Dawn of Agriculture

The change from the hunting-gathering lifestyle to one dependent upon farming constitutes a truly revolutionary event in the human career. Most archaeologists agree that the way in which ancient people organized their work and family groups were crucial to the success of early attempts at farming. This is a study of the historical sexual division of labour. As a case study, Jane Peterson chose the southern Levant of West Asia, where the world’s first farming societies emerged some 10,000 years ago. Seeking to shatter long-held assumptions about women’s work that lead to generalizations about gender roles, Peterson shows that gender studies can be both scientific and grounded in feminist theory.