CULTURAL COMPARISON

Cultural Comparison

Outline

If one were to travel down the annals of history, he would be greeted with numerous symbols and artifacts that depict, idolize and even celebrate womanhood, femininity and sexuality. Arguably, the Paleolithic culture is known as much for developing stone tools as it is for learning to create arts and crafts out of stone. The Paleolithic culture comprised of some of our more civilized ancestors. The culture was also the first to develop tools made of stones, which were for a wide range of purposes such as hunting, sculpting and painting. One such stone-carved artifact, the Venus of Willendorf, is a commonly studied piece of art that was sculpted by the Paleolithic humans. The Venus of Willendorf is a famous artifact from the Paleolithic culture and it essentially depicts the figurine of a woman. There has been much debate on the purpose of the figurine and why it was created. For example, there is a commonly held belief that the sculpture is a divinity statue that represents fertility. This is particularly believable and convincing once various geometrical aspects of the figurine are taken into account. For example, the Venus of Willendorf is depicted as a large woman with big round full breasts while her sexual regions have been particularly emphasized so that they give a distinct impression that the woman is pregnant. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the Paleolithic culture with the modern human culture and assess whether there are patterns of congruence between them. The paper will study the significance of the Venus figurine and the modern day Barbie doll in order to draw a conclusion.

Cultural Comparison Essay

It is assumed that the Paleolithic culture celebrated the fertility of women by carving the Venus of Willendorf from a piece of stone and handing them as gifts to their loved ones (Sharma, 2008). The figurines have also been inferred as being the representation of a mother goddess and this has aroused widespread debate over whether the Paleolithic society was dominated by the female gender and that they followed a female-centered religion. This would also give the strong impression that the Paloeolithic males were extremely tolerant towards their female counterparts and that, in fact, they celebrated womanhood through the traditional arts and craft, numerous specimens of which have been found by archeologists (Guthrie, 2005).

Another important concept is the application of the Venus figurines as a symbol of strength for women. As discussed before, the Venus of Willendorf was celebrated as a goddess. This may also mean that the sculpting of stone in the form of a divinity statue represents the empowerment of women (Grand, 1967). The statues were common items in households and this means that they were meant to symbolize a goddess. The term god can commonly be used to characterize tremendous power and strength. This means that the statue was also used as a means for empowering women (Krishna, 2012).

Such a culture in which dolls are used as a celebratory figure for womanhood is ...