Cultural and Historical Views of Women in Ancient Mayan Civilization through Sculpture
Abstract
My hypothesis is that most women were oppressed to a specific gender role in the Maya
culture until Yohl Ik’nal became the first female ruler in their history; this event created a new
culture of respect and acceptance for females in higher castes from then on. Women in the
Mayan society prior to the reign of Yohl Ik’nal were viewed only as maternal and supportive
symbols to the community; however, elite women were treated with a greater degree of respect
but not quite as equals to the men until after her reign. Not only were these women only viewed
as motherly and nurturing, but they were also placed into set gender roles that shifted based on
their age. This is shown strongly through Mayan lore and deities. One, amongst several pieces of
evidence regarding females being held in lower regard before the reign of Yohl Ik’nal, can be
seen through the tale of the hero twins where one of the brothers loses his level of deference
because he becomes a female in the afterlife. Another can be seen through Ix Chel who
represented women throughout the stages of their lives; however, more often than not she was
more closely associated with pregnancy, which shows how women were forced into a set gender
role until after the crowning of Yohl Ik’nal, despite this particular goddess having a multitude of
other godly gifts. There are very few exceptions to the role of women in society until Ixtab who
is not as much of an anomaly as she may seem and is not completely out of the realm of female
gender roles because she was created to serve men, which was how females were regarded
before Yohl Ik’nal. The mythological aspects and folklore of a society helped to shape how this
society interacted with one another within their community, which is how the Goddesses served
to connote females as a weaker gender but was quickly disproven by Yohl Ik’nal which is shown
through the later crowing of another female queen. It wasn’t until Yohl Ik’nal that the noble
woman had the ability to gain respect because she defied previous standards that had been held
over their heads since the beginning of civilization. Although Mayan women were gaining new
found respect among their male peers, it was only for those who were fortunate to have been
born into an elite position of the caste system; this is due to one not being able to marry outside
of their caste, which means that one could not travel up in the hierarchy, leaving the change in
society that Yohl Ik’nal set in motion only to this group. Yohl Ik’nal was the first liberator and
rebel against the Mayan female gender roles set upon elite women, disproving the heavily
connoted assumption of weakness in females, which created a new dynasty of respect for this
subgroup of people in the Mayan society.
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