Chapter 7 Women on Time
Gendered Temporalities in Greco-Roman Egypt
In: The Public Lives of Ancient Women (500 BCE-650 CE)Search for other papers by Sofie Remijsen in
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Abstract
This chapter examines documentary papyri from Greco-Roman Egypt for evidence for specifically female experiences of time. The first section examines how women talked about the middle-long term (days and months), the second section how they wrote about the short term (hours). Both show that gendered temporalities are situational: in certain male-dominated spheres, such as the military, administration and elite display, time is organised according to the rigid schedules of the calendar and, to a lesser extent, the clock; women are less present in these spheres, and less likely to express time in these ways. As (co)authors of documents addressed to people outside their own household, they put on their public face and adopt the gender expectations of their communities. As soon they show themselves involved in male-dominated spheres, however, for example as businesswoman or party host, they were capable of flexibly adopting these seemingly masculine temporal modes.