Did you know that women were the forerunners of agriculture? In Prehistory, while men went out to perform activities such as hunting, women dedicated themselves to gathering fruits, seeds, and grains. This habit allowed them to realize that if a seed fell to the ground, it would germinate and a plant would emerge after a few days.
As a result of these observations, they had the idea to start collecting seeds, harvesting them, and tilling the fields to obtain plants that they could then use for their survival. In this way, cultivation and harvesting tasks emerged.
The Role of Women in AgricultureAgriculture is an activity in which women continue to p
articipate today and since the beginning of its history, so their role in agricultural development has been and is fundamental. In fact, thanks to women specializing in gathering seeds and fruits and carefully observing everything that happened in the environment, they became great experts in the changing seasons and their effect on the plant cycle.
And, evidently, besides women having invented agriculture and, therefore, being the ones who realized that delicious recipes could be created with plants, they also observed that medicinal plants existed and could provide us with a multitude of healthy benefits, so they began to use them for healing. In fact, to jump through history... and go back to ancient Egypt, it is said that documents have been found that are over 3,500 years old and describe a hundred plants with medicinal uses that were passed down from generation to generation.
There are Egyptian papyri over 3,500 years old that describe more than 150 plants with medicinal uses, and this knowledge was passed down from generation to generation within families through women.
Women were sidelinedHowever, this tradition of women as alchemists, which we value today and find wonderful, was not always so. In fact, it is a drama. During the Middle Ages, women who knew certain natural remedies or claimed to be healers were branded as "witches." This was a period in the Middle Ages when women continued to perform tasks of gathering, cultivating, and caring for gardens, tasks they carried out alongside men.
Thus, exhaustive knowledge of plants is a somewhat feminine wisdom, although historical events have complicated it. In fact, it must be for a reason that today, in some Amazonian tribes, women know which plants can have medicinal uses, and men are more aware of everything related to politics and the more spiritual realm.
And there is still much to do...And despite having been the inventors of agriculture, society still attributes this fact to men, simply due to a lack of historical knowledge. But, even so, we were not only pioneers in this area: women have played truly important roles throughout history. Our drive has led us to be inventors of objects whose origin is still unknown. We have been protagonists in activities of which we are not aware and in fields such as science, physics, biology, astrophysics, and technology.
From now until March 8th, International Women's Day, we will bring you more stories.
Recommended book for deeper understanding: Maribel Corral, Women and Medicinal Plants.