Women on Time Gendered Temporalities in Greco-Roman Egypt

This chapter examines documentary papyri from Greco-Roman Egypt for evid- ence for specifically female experiences of time. The first section examines how women talked about the middle-long term (days and months), the second sec- tion 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 com- munities. 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.