Chapter 1: first people

    Many facts that state in chapter one of the book“ Ways of the world” sound very interesting to me. Some of these facts even greatly surprised me, especially one statement which is about human society. In that section, the author Robert W. Strayer and Eric W. Nelson introduce that: “ Relationship between women and men usually far more equal than in later societies.” ( 21) The reason why they have this idea is that “ As the primary food gatherers, women provided the bulk of the family`s sustenance.”(21) According to a study that is based on a surviving gathering and hunting group society called “ the San people”, “ 70% of the plants normally gathered by women, provided 70 percent of the diet, while meat, hunted by men, accounted for just 30 percent.” This division of labor strengthens the role of women in that society which allowed men and women shared a relatively equal social status with each other.

    Before I have read this part of the chapter, I assumed that women and men have been sharing an unequal social status through human history, especially during the “ paleolithic” time period. Because of the term “ hunter-gatherer”, I have always believed that men as hunters who provide more strength to the society, therefore they appear as a symbol of power. But now I know that actually the word “ hunter- gather” has to switch to “ gather- hunter” due to the fact that gathering actually is the main source of food back in that time, and women are the main force for the gathering.