Bogmis 1
Ara Bogmis
HIST 326
Ball
29 March 2015
Battling the Ideal
The ideal woman or man has changed throughout time, depending on cues from the
higher powers like the church or the top tier of society. These ideals are always meant to confine,
limit and constrict an individual to conform to a specific fantasy that isn’t always feasible. These
ideals for women change so drastically and frequently that the ideals themselves can be used as
markers for different points in our nation’s history. And at every pinnacle point in history there
are the women who comply and the women who rebel. The battle between the two is ongoing
and never ending.
The bible says that woman was made from the rib of man, so from the very beginning of
time in the Christian opinion women are viewed as the second sex; that woman being created
from a man cannot live or exist without one. Even in ancient societies like Greece women are
seen as subordinate so much so that the philosopher Aristotle, a man that is thought to be one of
the most influential people not only of his time but to this day, viewed women’s bodies as not
just different from men in biological sense but actually inferior to men. As a society we take note
of biological sex characteristics and invest them with social significance, then we teach that
social significance to our children. From an early age we teach our children that they belong to a
specific category and that category comes with rules and regulations that they are expected to
