Much has been written about the ancient Egyptian scribe and his status and function in society. We have heard of scribes being in vital positions on almost every imaginable positions up and down the administrative hierarchy and we know that to make a career, a scribal education was mandatory. We also know that to be eligible for a scribal career, you had most likely to be well born. The sons of commoners did not reach the temple schools in general.

But what about women in this respect? Was it that only men could read and write and that women were analphabets? Or did there exist female scribes as well? Well, there appears during the Middle Kingdom the word seshet; the feminine form of the male 'sesh' which means 'scribe'. The word seshet should then denote a female scribe. But some scholars mean that this is a short version of a female title probably meaning 'painter of her mouth' or 'cosmetician' as it is found listed together with the word for hairdresser.

If they in fact existed, the difference between the female 'seshet' and the male 'sesh' was a big one.

Despite the presence of the word seshet, there is no safe evidence for women being able to read and write in ancient Egypt. As they were not working within the bureaucracy, it might not have been considered worthwhile to put them through a formal scribal education. Anyhow they might have learnt it in other ways, and we just lack documents which are safely proved written by a woman. Also, letters between women could very well have been written and read out loud by male scribes.

But there existed a woman in the Middle Kingdom, one seshet Idwy, who was the owner of a scarab seal. A seal - this points at a much higher status than that of a cosmetician. There are a couple of other examples too. In the Late Period there was a sesh-sehemet; 'female scribe' to the God´s wife of Amun at Thebes, and there are two 'seshet' depicted among household officials on a private stelae. There is also one 'seshet' depichted in the burial chamber of the royal woman Aashit at Deir-el-Bahri which shows that female scribes cannot be totally excluded. However, these are few examples among the whole.

While there are countless depictions of working male scribes, none exist of actually working female ones. Existing depicitons of seshets are on the whole very few, and it´s not possible to prove that they were employed in the state administration. It could just as well be that they held positions in a royal or private household.

There are some New Kingdom depictions of women with a scribal kit under their chairs, but it could be that these tools were put there for lack of space elsewhere in the picture and that they belonged to the husband, since he is also depicted there.

Girls from literate families could very well have been taught to read and write in a non-official context, and perhaps this knowledge was even passed on from mothers to daughters. It might also be that we do have writings penned by women, but as yet lack the ability to say for certain.

These things considered, it seems likely that women were mostly analphabets but that in the upper echelons of society some did know how to read and write, at least from the Middle Kingdom and onwards. Since we don´t hear about them being educated or holding official posts, the main difference between men and women in this context seems to be that women were active within the home and in un-official situations, except perhaps in the case of the God´s Wife of Amun, while men, as in most cases in the ancient world, worked in official positions on various levels in society as administrators or bureocrats.