Gender Identity and Hegemony in Roman Society
Submission Type
Event
Faculty Advisor
Amanda Coles
Expected Graduation Date
2019
Location
Room E103, Center for Natural Sciences, Illinois Wesleyan University
Start Date
4-13-2019 11:00 AM
End Date
4-13-2019 12:00 PM
Disciplines
Education
Abstract
Roman society from the early Republican period to the Flavian Imperial dynasty (509BCE-96CE) relied on a system of complete cultural dominance of masculine actors to promote and maintain patriarchy, a process the Italian political theorist Gramsci calls hegemony. This paper argues that Roman men propagated ideal gender norms and socially ostracized men and violently punished women and intersex people for deviating from those norms, by analyzing literary and epigraphic treatments of gender from the period. Other scholars take Roman patriarchy as existing for its own sake or that it was innately part of the Roman state apparatus, while in reality it was a constructed system which required constant maintenance. Revealing the consequences of deviation within such a consistently reinforced system is a new direction for scholars of Roman society.
Gender Identity and Hegemony in Roman Society
Room E103, Center for Natural Sciences, Illinois Wesleyan University
Roman society from the early Republican period to the Flavian Imperial dynasty (509BCE-96CE) relied on a system of complete cultural dominance of masculine actors to promote and maintain patriarchy, a process the Italian political theorist Gramsci calls hegemony. This paper argues that Roman men propagated ideal gender norms and socially ostracized men and violently punished women and intersex people for deviating from those norms, by analyzing literary and epigraphic treatments of gender from the period. Other scholars take Roman patriarchy as existing for its own sake or that it was innately part of the Roman state apparatus, while in reality it was a constructed system which required constant maintenance. Revealing the consequences of deviation within such a consistently reinforced system is a new direction for scholars of Roman society.