Eliana Abboud's World History Blog

This article introduced a topic I have not thought about before. I enjoyed reading that article as it opened my eyes to what helping really means. It has proven to me that people should learn how to serve their communities and loved ones, instead of helping them. I never realized that helping creates a sense of inequality until I read this article. Some people often tend to feel the urge to fix others, which I now know means they have this unconscious belief that the other person is broken. Mother Theresa's message should be spread more, so that society can become more educated on the way they are treating others and how they want to be treated. This message really helped me become aware of the way I have helped people rather than served them. 

It was very interesting to read about how all these religions spread across the world. Several religions such as: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Greek rationalism,  and Christianity all spread around the world very quickly. This chapter taught me new things about some religions. I learned that even though confucianism and Daoism both originated in China, they have very different perspectives towards the concept of gender. Confucianism teaches that women are inferior and they should serve their husbands until death. Education for women was stressed in this religion, but only so that women could be prepared to serve their husbands. On the other hand, Daoism teaches that women and men are both equal. It also emphasizes the concept of yin and yang which encourages the unity of opposites. When looking at these two religions, it is odd to see how they are completely different in terms of gender. Overall this chapter was very interesting and it taught ...

What caught my attention the most while reading chapter 3 was the part about Athens and their democracy. A leader named Solon pushed towards democracy in 594 B.C.E.. This is when more men were able to participate in politics. What surprised me the most was the fact that the book states that all men were allowed to take part in assembly, but continues to say that women, slaves and foreigners were not allowed to participate. This made me feel as if the writers were contradicting themselves. It's also sad to hear that the people who made up more than half of the population were not allowed to participate in the assembly which became the center of political life.

One thing that caught my attention in chapter 2 was the section about hierarchies of gender. It starts off by talking about the inferiority of women in society. Then it continues to talk about how the women were limited to their homes and managing housework. It saddens me that very few women defied these gender roles and the majority accepted their roles. They also lost hope in ever reaching gender equality. Many women were pushed out of the world of agriculture as it progressed and moved on to doing things like weaving. I wonder why societies let this happen, since during Paleolithic times there was gender equality.

I was surprised when I read that after the Ice Age people started settling down and creating permanent homes for themselves. Also, how quickly they were able to adapt and find new ways to survive. They were motivated to create new tools and methods of finding food since their population was rapidly increasing. These people began domesticating which led to a larger food supply. Later they started the agricultural revolution, introducing farming, which was led by females since they were the gatherers of these crops. This makes me wonder how quickly we would have been able to adapt, given the amount of technology we have now and how reliant we are on it. Something that amazes me is how both domestication and the agricultural revolution were spreading all over the world, yet there was absolutely no communication between these people. Everyone was trying to figure out what crops work best in the areas their areas, but no one was aware that this was going on all around the world simultaneou...