How many times have you walked through the local mall and seen today's version of beauty in a woman? Did she wear makeup? Was she thin enough to see through her skin? Or did she have a more voluptuous body type? Most likely she was a thin woman, wearing makeup and with dyed or highlighted hair. She has a job and has the same legal status as a man. In most countries today, women are considered equal to men as both providers and citizens of the country in which they reside. Unfortunately, this was not always the case. Early in recorded history, women were seen as nurturers, caregivers, and entertainers, while being considered of lower status than a man. In the Paleolithic the earth became known as Mother Earth because she provided for her inhabitants in much the same way as women of that period. was expected for their families. Women were the gatherers, healers and nurses of their villages. They took pride in having a large, round body (which was considered healthy and conducive to pregnancy, i.e., fertility). The Venus of Willendorf, stone idol of Mother Earth, effectively demonstrates this with her swollen and fertile body. This is very different from how health and beauty are perceived today, where a leaner, firmer body is equated with health and well-being. Later in Babylon, around 1800-1750 BC, Ishtar, the “Queen of Heaven,” was worshiped as the goddess of fertility. In the plaque on page 20 she is depicted with a round and full face, large breasts and round hips demonstrating her fertility. Here the fertility icon of the time is not shown with a bulbous body, but is still shown with overtly feminine qualities. When Ishtar is adopted by the Egyptians and renamed Isis, she is quickly overshadowed... mid-card... able to overcome the implied social role of being fruitful? While there is nothing wrong with women being entertainers, it is past time that women were given a vital role in society beyond whether or not they gave birth to the future ruler or dictator of the world. Today, women are still unsure of their place in society, even though they are no longer relegated exclusively to the role of housewives. Nearly 100 years after women won the right to vote as equal citizens in the United States, women still cannot get a woman to sit in the country's highest seat of power, the White House, as president. It will take centuries of healing and cooperation between the sexes for the damage of millennia to be repaired. Will this damage to women's psyches ever be fully repaired? This is for future generations to discover.