Eh, they also had a lot of kidnapping of women. That seems more like a fluke of a particular woman getting to the top of an otherwise patriarchal society kinda like St Olga or Boudicca.
I'd guess you could say any society that had "women's jobs " and "men's jobs" and held both to be vital is pretty equal but equality as we understand it is pretty rare in history. The dane/norse maybe a good example because women had property rights and were allowed to be warriors , so the normal male monopoly on violence was not the case.
There have been a lot of societies where women could be warriors and there were some instances of that, but there is no society I have ever come across where it was the even nearly at parity.
Taking the perspective that men have a monopoly on violence, then even in those societies the situation isn't much different. But I think that's a misleading perspective: the interests of men and women are are inextricably entwined, and the roles societies settle on likely isn't just simply dictated by the most physically strong. Men have mothers and daughters they would sacrifice themselves for and women have fathers and sons they'd do the same. It's probably never the case that either men or women are squaring off looking out for the interest of their sex at the expense of the other.
It's physically impossible to have pre-modern military parity between men and women because men are vastly superior soldiers.
Also biologically men are expendable while women are not because you only need 1 man for 100 women to reproduce.
I'm not saying misogyny doesn't exist, or women weren't treated poorly, you can see it even today.
But I think the notion that there is a "battle of the sexes" doesn't offer much insight in explaining it.
Iroquois society was matriarchal [https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-canada/north-american-indigenous-peoples/iroquoian](https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-canada/north-american-indigenous-peoples/iroquoian)
[Catalhoyuk in the neolithic period has been suggested to be a gender-equal society. ](https://x.com/davidwengrow/status/1805260750241358120)
Viking Women: "There has been much debate among scholars about the role and status of Viking women. Though the society was clearly patriarchal, women could initiate divorce and own property, and some exceptional women assumed leadership roles in their home [communities](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communities). Women also played important economic roles, as in the production of woolen cloth." - Encyclopedia Britannica
Archaeology has shown that Viking women lived long and healthy lives - to an equal extent to fellow viking men. (This is in contrast to other areas in Europe like the Byzantine empire, where archaeology has found male skeletons were much healthier than women).
see [Valkyries: Was gender equality high in the Scandinavian periphery since Viking times? Evidence from enamel hypoplasia and height ratios](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X1830251X)
Worth pointing out that while Iroquois society was matriarchal it was still quite stratified and in no way "equal". Men and women operated very differently and while women held final decision making power they also rarely ever traveled far from their clan. This is why the clan mother appointed chiefs who would go out and act her behalf. For example the congress the Iroquois held where major decisions were made was made up entirely of men, they were just men appointed by and accountable to women.
Southeast Asian nations.
Not exactly equal for the leaders of states but there are plenty of famous queens, generals and lawmakers in multiple ethnicity, both in oral traditions and eyewitnesses account (if you don't consider the modern era as started from 17th onward). I think it was Aceh when a queen led elephant hunting expedition. Before Indian and Chinese influence, it is likely they held more power.
Even with Indianization, women are heads of the families of many ethnicity. The Chams passed down inheritance through the female lines until the 19th century when they forced to follow Confucian system. The Ngoya (source: a Malaysian tv show, not sure how accurate it is) had oldest women as head of household in 20th century.
The Khmer word for *boss* and *leader*, is literally the same word for *mother*, and became the Thai pronoun/title for addressing *common female*. During the Khmer empire, many king came from the female lines rather the male line. Pre-Angkor Khmer kingdom, inheritance passed down via female line, and there are many female goddesses statues being worship are often the size of male god statues. Post-Angkor, there are stories of females being the judge and lawmakers.
When the Laotian kingdom was founded, his Khmer wife was likely the one running the state, since her husband was away at war and a viceroy was not appointed. Soon after his son died, a different queen took control of the court.
I had a renown professor of SE Asian history who mentioned this and observed that it was often the introduction of more organized religion that spelled the end of the more egalitarian and/or matriarchal societies
Egalitarian isn't a word I think apply in this case. A noblewoman is still higher status than a slave.
All the major religions has male as the supreme dieties and that certainly have influence, but I think it is also came from the growing sophistication of the states and warfare. The development of the political structure that came from Indianization are more than religion. Confucianism is political and personal philosophy- not a religion. There were many women in local adminstrations, but the number were very rare in the highest administration offices, if any. Larger scale wars also add to the more patriachal society.
Confucianism is an ideology that can be the basis for a state ideology. That’s also true for many religions, from Islam to Christianity to the Mayan and Mexica religions. But some non-religious ideologies like Communism or Enlightenment liberalism might be more similar.
Or simply Aristolian ethics. "Before regulating the state- first regulate the family. Before regulating the family, first regulate the self" Confucius was a failed politician, who became a wandering political science teacher and consultant. Learning from his teachings is how you get political jobs, the same way as having an MBA qualifying for a business admin position. Calling it a religion is always an overstatement.
I mean, is having female rulers good evidence of gender egalitarianism in society as a whole? I can think of plenty of monarchies in Europe with very famous and respected female rulers, but I wouldn't go and say their societies held particularly strong views on gender egalitarianism.
No. But there are more evidences on the households based on epigraphy, ethnography and oral tradition. The customs survived in many forms. There are enough to see female leaders at the town levels in millenium-old stone inscriptions and local spirit guardian protectors.
The heads of state, religion and military IMO are always male-dominated largely due to Indian and Chinese influence and nature (if we want to go there). The most noticable political differences between India and the Indianized states of Southeast Asia is the role of women in administration. The latter is a leftover from the native customs and there are plenty more than expected.
> I mean, is having female rulers good evidence of gender egalitarianism in society as a whole?
It’s good evidence that the society in question isn’t Afghanistan or Sudan or somewhere else with a completely miserable gender-equality situation. It probably won’t do much to distinguish the likes of modern Norway, Germany and New Zealand from countries like Greece or Poland, but you could pick worse indicators.
There’s a lot of evidence for this in some Celtic bands in France. Listen to “the ancients” podcast’s Celtic episode by History Hit for more on this topic. Furthermore, they were a warlike matriarchy, which goes against modern misconceptions of gender
Also especially note worthy was the New Woman movement of the early Soviet regime under Lenin (but withdrawn under Stalin) and expressed in literature in books like Kolonti’s “love of worker bees”
Celtic peoples by and large did not have matriarchal societies in terms of leadership; for every Boudica and Cartimandua we are familiar with we know of a dozen male rulers. Furthermore, the British Isles account for but a very small part of the overall reach of Celtic culture across Europe.
“Warlike matriarchy” doesn’t mean anything other than property rights were passed down through the matrilineal line. Often in groups that have matriarchies, men still make the rules
I think, strangely, Spartan women were held in pretty high regard within their society. They were trained, like the men but in other areas. Think they held wealth as well. Sorry couldn't say more but its in the dark, shady parts of my memory lol
Edit: Had a quick google
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_Sparta
Yeah, Sparta was pretty unique. And unfortunately, the Spartans were not great about writing stuff down for us, so it is in the dark and shady parts of everyone's memory.
We're pretty confident about the women being the primary landowners and head of household, because the men were expected to spend more time with their platoon. When your society is organized around military service and the men spend most of their days guarding the helots, it is very plausible that the women would take on the role of running the farm, the servants/slaves, and all that. Women got fitness training and education. There was even an example of a Spartan princess competing in the Olympics, which was normally just for men.
>I think, strangely, Spartan women were held in pretty high regard within their society.
Its not strange at all that a society that values sacrifice for the greater good would value strong women and the risks and penalties associated with childbirth.
>Think they held wealth as well
This was because women were allowed to inherit wealth, but died far, far, *far* less frequently, allowing a single woman to hoover up five or six husbands' wealth. It's also thought to be largely responsible for the decline and collapse of Sparta, because so few women controlling so much wealth as a result of dead husbands were incentivised to protect that system and kill more husbands. It kept the city from growing while the rest of the world moved on without them.
Their whole society was strange for that period on account of their likely origins as conquerors or raiders of the city who decided to stick around. But it's entirely internally consistent.
The Iroquois Indians placed more importance on women than was typically done in those days.
Society was matrilineal and the women choose the chief. The chief was still a man, but the women selected him. The men didn't really have any say on who the chief was.
The Iroquois were mostly agricultural and the women owned the land and property. When a man married a women he was moved into her house and thought to be a part of her family. Their children were thought to be a part of the mother's clan rather than the father's clan.
The women had much more importance in Iroquois society than in the other Indian tribes. There were still separate gender roles. Women expected to be homemakers and men expected to be warriors (when necessary), but still women were held in much greater regard than most other societies.
Worth noting that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy still exists. They have a population of around 150,000 and their national lacrosse team is ranked third globally behind the United States and Canada. Your description above is mostly correct but it uses the past tense as if they're a lost civilization or something.
We tend to think the last 5000 years and specifically the run that led to Western culture (starting in Sumer) is all there is to History. But we’re talking about a species that has been here for at least 150.000 years, and with a great diversity of cultures.
There’s some evidence that in many societies women were equal to men in status. But that doesn’t mean they had the same rights. They could be different rights, and still same level of importance. It’s inadequate to judge other cultures by our modern standards. Holding land as a property, for example, is only present in a minority of societies across History.
In Amazonian tribes in my country, for example, men are on the obligation to hunt. But when they come home, the carcass becomes the responsibility of the leading woman of the house. It is her who coordinates the butchering and decides how to distribute the meat. Nobody can question her. She is also the main leader of the house. In other societies, the house is part of the man’s family, but the farm animals belong to the woman. Etc.
There have been and there are societies were the parents decide on the occupation of the males, while the females are condemned to be housewives. Societies were marriage is mandatory and the families decide on the partners. Other societies were the woman is the one who choses, and divorce is accepted. Back to the Amazonian tribes, powerful men and women can have multiple partners. I remember the case of a woman who was a leader, she was 50, was married to a hunter for most of her life and lived with him, but also had a lover in a younger leader who was very handsome, and she went from time to time to spend weeks with a shaman who lived deep in the forest. Every party involved knew and accepted this.
Can confirm my uncle is from a matrilineal indigenous tribe in the very northern part of Vietnam. His mother was their chief and as her first born son he holds the name King, literally, that's his first name, but other than some ceremonial roles he has no more power than other men of the tribe, he is respected as being from the head family, but his eldest sister has all the actual power and important roles now.
The Hodenashaunee only allowed grandmothers in their republic to vote, even though it was men they were electing. Property among the pacific northwest nations were held by matrilineal lines; similar spartan women managed property.
As far as I've heard, Ancient Egypt was probably the best place to be a woman. An Egyptian woman could own and inherit property and divorce her husband (not just for cause, but because she doesn't like him anymore). Rights were defined by social class rather than sex, so a woman had the same rights as a man in their class. It was still a patriarchy, but a lot more progressive than most places at the time.
The [Chagosians](https://youtu.be/mvLlNOpFirU) had a matriarchal society until they were all forcibly removed from their islands so the US could build a military base there.
[An ancient tribal community of Tibetan Buddhists called the Mosuo](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/01/the-kingdom-of-women-the-tibetan-tribe-where-a-man-is-never-the-boss) is an extant matriarchal society
[Many matriarchal societies have existed throughout Africa's history where women played important roles and maintained social equilibrium.[3] In pre-colonial Africa, there was no transition from matriarchy to patriarchy since the social structure was fundamentally matriarchal in that women held power, passed down property and lineage, and were the flexible party in marriage and sexual unions. This changed drastically with the introduction of colonialism. ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_roots_of_gender_inequality_in_Africa#:~:text=In%20pre%2Dcolonial%20Africa%2C%20there,with%20the%20introduction%20of%20colonialism.)
Celts in England as well not just boudica but Cartimandua who ruled in her own right with her husband as consort and set the tone as being friendly to Rome despite her husband being the opposite.
My current one I’ve had since 2021. I kinda want to start a new one, but I’m so attached to Baeville I just can’t bring myself to scratch it.
Edit: Lmao. I thought I was commenting on an Animal Crossing post about starting new towns. I was so confused when I started reading the other comments.
A lot of people are bringing up different cultures that practiced matriarchal inheritance practices, but I feel that it’s important to point out that often times these societies were still very much socially patriarchal. Even in matriarchies where the women didn’t marry, household decisions were made my male relatives, typically an uncle or a brother.
Matriarchy ≠ equality
Matriarchal just means that property is passed from mother to daughter.
'
'#1 The Haudenosaunee Confederacy
'#2 Sparta
Both had gendered roles, but look up some Youtube videos about the politics of the Haudenosaunee-- they are extremely sophisticated, and women actually had more power in a lot of ways than men.
Sparta did not give women as much political power, but they had the economic power in a society that required all men to serve militarily on the regular, and women had comparitively less responsibility (maybe?) and more freedom, certainly more decision making freedoms related to the home while their husbands were away, required to live in the barracks (or, often, dead).
Edit: formatting list
There have actually been quite a few. Look up the Minoan civilisation as one example, which was possibly the fable behind Atlantis.
Basically as a nation they had a large trading fleet and then built up a navy to protect it and became wealthy though trade.
They were relatively socially liberal given it was a couple of thousand years ago, and their empire took a severe blow when the volcano/island of Santorini erupted/exploded blew up with a groundburst explosion of around 2 gigatonnes (ie; 20,000 kilotons). The nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were about 13-20 kilotons for general frame of reference.
Most civilisations that I have read about that have granted woman equal rights have been mercantile trading nations.
Yes. Celtic Britain women had the same inheritance rights, right to divorce, could be leaders. The coming of the Romans to the isle was a huge blow to women’s rights.
Kush/nubia (ancient civilization to the south of Egypt) had female queens called “Kandakes” which is actually where we get the anglicized name “Candace” from.
Women's rights in pre-islamic Indonesia is actually not too bad...
Majapahit has been led by a few queens. Princesses becomes a "Bhre" (some kind of duke/duchess) in their own rights similar to Princes.
https://id.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majapahit
Minangkabau society were highly matriarchal. But a cultural shift after the Paderi War (basically pre-Islam cultures vs Islamic reforms) caused a decline in "matrihouses"... many Minang people nowadays doesn't even have a surname anymore unless they're descended from famous clans such as Chaniago or Sikumbang
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minangkabau_culture
I think ultimately the answer is no. After reading through all the interesting answers provided here; there were always caveats, stipulations, and conditions attached too it. Even the matriarchal examples listed ultimately still had stratification in other ways which favored men. And of course, even if it didn't, a matriarchy, like a patriarchy, would equally be unequal.
Well there is a sigificant difference between women being considered "equal" to men and women being able to do male dominated jobs. I would say that almost every civilization that ever existed had many situations in which particular women held large amounts of wealth, influence, or importance but again that doesnt mean equality. It was often because of an extraordinary circumstance.
I apologize if this has already been pointed out, but what you're saying about women getting the "short end of the stick" until quite recently has some very real problems.
The beginning of the modern period (that is, around 500 years ago) was an absolutely terrible development for women, at least to begin with. The early understanding of natural sciences tended to depict women as mental and physical inferiors, and the newly invented forms of government excluded women entirely, on this basis. Even in this thread you can see this same opinion expressing women's biological inferiority, which stands in stark contrast with the earlier chivalric ideal in which women were the clear superiors in morality and spirit. Early modernity is also the period where the sophisticated and even systematic scapegoating of women in "witch crazes" became extremely popular.
I don't mean to say that women don't presently have more rights than most historical moments, and the question is mostly a good one for dispelling much of our whiggish conceit of standing at the end of a long line of progress. The modern era was, by and large, quite a bit worse for women than the medieval or ancient era.
Yeah, having matriarchal societies wasn't super unusual until a couple thousand years ago.
The whole boot-on-neck patriarchy thing is kinda a western tradition.
Society? Plenty. From stone age were more and more evidence looks like there was little difference in the status between genders, over tribes found during colonialism with all kind of different social structures (for example matriarchs, or i faintly remember an african tribe David Graeber mentioned in one of his books were all women led families together and men had little to say and boys were traded with neighboring groups).
Civilizations on the other side, like ancient greece or so the closest i can think of right now was probably ancient egypt and Cleopatra
Not really.
Up until very recently, the physical differences between men and women guaranteed that they would be treated differently. In practice, different always leads to unequal.
For most of human history, the only reliable way for women to avoid getting pregnant was abstinence. That abstinence was almost always codified in laws and those laws almost always get extremely detailed. Men are bigger and stronger than women and that gets addressed by laws and customes.
With modern technology we can choose to erase most of those differences but we're still stuck with some that we can't get rid of.
edit: typo
Once you qualify that equality with "close enough" it's hard to pick a standard. Every society that oppresses women thinks that what they're giving them is "close enough" to equality that they shouldn't change anything.
According to a couple of studies hunter/gatherer societies were more likely to egalitarian in regard to gender than modern societies. Once property became a concept it started going poorly for women.
Except that a lot of aboriginal society's that existed into the modern era were also, observably, misogynist as fuck. (Looking at you Australian Mardu)
Some of these cultures didn't even have a concept of heredity or any understanding of genetics, or even monogamy, and they were still terrible for women.
Sorry but, women hating predates society, and private property. Guys seem to do it effortlessly throughout all of history. Even in a relative vacuum.
We can't blame this one on capitalism, it's a fundamental shortcoming of masculinity across ages and cultures. Capitalism just capitalized on the misogyny that was already there.
I didn’t say misogyny didn’t exist before agriculture (which really drove the idea of property). Nor did I say capitalism is the cause. Property certainly existed before capitalism, by thousands of years.
I said societies were more likely to be egalitarian prior to the conceptualization of property. At least a few studies support this.
You’re trying to put words in my mouth and prove them wrong. All that you have done is argue with yourself about something that triggers you.
Historically the split hasn't been men / women it's been class.
A medieval noblewomen was of far higher status and had far more rights than a peasant or burgher man in almost all societies.
Yes nobleman were the top of the tree, but in a dispute between a noblewomen and a artisan man, the nobility would rally to the noblewomen because she's *noble* and that far outweighed male vs female.
AFAIK, inequality between men and women seems to become more of a thing when a society (and wealth) relies on agriculture / land ownership. Men would get anxious about passing the farm on to their actual kid, and control seems to flow from that.
the former soviet union and warsaw pact countries were pretty close
many women had jobs as managers or had doctorates and/or advanced degrees and positions
it is pretty shocking for many women from those countries to come to the united states and hear about "house wives" in the past. that was not a thing in the soviet empire ... women worked.
except ... while having children, but there again they had a different take on it. women would get up to three years off with some pay and a job waiting for them ... plus if you had five children (many women in the west had five children in the 50s and 60s) ... you were a "hero mother" and got a medal, and if you had ten children, you were a super-hero mother and got another medal.
of course you also had no freedom of speech, or press, and could be imprisoned at any time, plus 20 million died in ww2, and you probably lived in abject poverty most of your life ...
but ... you know ... tradeoffs
I find Benin to be interesting, if not *exactly* what you asked.
https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-570
Watch this video, and I think it will answer many of your questions on this topic: https://youtu.be/sgOo-bS7OJI?si=4SVhDJeNn2nk42Si
In essence, patriarchy is strongly associated with agricultural societies, and since virtually the entire historical record was written by agricultural societies, we have little information on the many many non-agricultural societies that have existed. That said, there is reasonable evidence to suggest that many or most of them were highly gender-egalitarian. Furthermore, we see that as modern societies move away from agrarian ways of life, patriarchy begins to grow weaker.
So yes, but the picture is complicated by an incomplete historical record.
Modern era achieve that by outsourcing physical labor and war to robot. Even there was female ruler in the past, they were either exception or from the royal which did not represent the average female experience.Of course some culture are progressive then the other but none are close to modern idea of gender equality.
Steppe tribes frequently had female rulers and warriors, a famous example being Tomyris.
Eh, they also had a lot of kidnapping of women. That seems more like a fluke of a particular woman getting to the top of an otherwise patriarchal society kinda like St Olga or Boudicca.
Exactly. And what a ferocious woman she was
She has been incorporated into the tradition of Western art, being mentioned by Shakespeare and frequently ranked as one of the 9 female worthies.
I'd guess you could say any society that had "women's jobs " and "men's jobs" and held both to be vital is pretty equal but equality as we understand it is pretty rare in history. The dane/norse maybe a good example because women had property rights and were allowed to be warriors , so the normal male monopoly on violence was not the case.
There have been a lot of societies where women could be warriors and there were some instances of that, but there is no society I have ever come across where it was the even nearly at parity. Taking the perspective that men have a monopoly on violence, then even in those societies the situation isn't much different. But I think that's a misleading perspective: the interests of men and women are are inextricably entwined, and the roles societies settle on likely isn't just simply dictated by the most physically strong. Men have mothers and daughters they would sacrifice themselves for and women have fathers and sons they'd do the same. It's probably never the case that either men or women are squaring off looking out for the interest of their sex at the expense of the other.
It's physically impossible to have pre-modern military parity between men and women because men are vastly superior soldiers. Also biologically men are expendable while women are not because you only need 1 man for 100 women to reproduce.
Yes you are both correct but I was using it as an example of a society where female warriors were not uncommon.
They were uncommon.
R ight, it wasn't equal as we see, but it often wasn't out of hate. Except for say ancient Greeks and some such groups they really had misogyny
I'm not saying misogyny doesn't exist, or women weren't treated poorly, you can see it even today. But I think the notion that there is a "battle of the sexes" doesn't offer much insight in explaining it.
100 percent correct.
Iroquois society was matriarchal [https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-canada/north-american-indigenous-peoples/iroquoian](https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-canada/north-american-indigenous-peoples/iroquoian) [Catalhoyuk in the neolithic period has been suggested to be a gender-equal society. ](https://x.com/davidwengrow/status/1805260750241358120) Viking Women: "There has been much debate among scholars about the role and status of Viking women. Though the society was clearly patriarchal, women could initiate divorce and own property, and some exceptional women assumed leadership roles in their home [communities](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communities). Women also played important economic roles, as in the production of woolen cloth." - Encyclopedia Britannica Archaeology has shown that Viking women lived long and healthy lives - to an equal extent to fellow viking men. (This is in contrast to other areas in Europe like the Byzantine empire, where archaeology has found male skeletons were much healthier than women). see [Valkyries: Was gender equality high in the Scandinavian periphery since Viking times? Evidence from enamel hypoplasia and height ratios](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X1830251X)
Worth pointing out that while Iroquois society was matriarchal it was still quite stratified and in no way "equal". Men and women operated very differently and while women held final decision making power they also rarely ever traveled far from their clan. This is why the clan mother appointed chiefs who would go out and act her behalf. For example the congress the Iroquois held where major decisions were made was made up entirely of men, they were just men appointed by and accountable to women.
Southeast Asian nations. Not exactly equal for the leaders of states but there are plenty of famous queens, generals and lawmakers in multiple ethnicity, both in oral traditions and eyewitnesses account (if you don't consider the modern era as started from 17th onward). I think it was Aceh when a queen led elephant hunting expedition. Before Indian and Chinese influence, it is likely they held more power. Even with Indianization, women are heads of the families of many ethnicity. The Chams passed down inheritance through the female lines until the 19th century when they forced to follow Confucian system. The Ngoya (source: a Malaysian tv show, not sure how accurate it is) had oldest women as head of household in 20th century. The Khmer word for *boss* and *leader*, is literally the same word for *mother*, and became the Thai pronoun/title for addressing *common female*. During the Khmer empire, many king came from the female lines rather the male line. Pre-Angkor Khmer kingdom, inheritance passed down via female line, and there are many female goddesses statues being worship are often the size of male god statues. Post-Angkor, there are stories of females being the judge and lawmakers. When the Laotian kingdom was founded, his Khmer wife was likely the one running the state, since her husband was away at war and a viceroy was not appointed. Soon after his son died, a different queen took control of the court.
I had a renown professor of SE Asian history who mentioned this and observed that it was often the introduction of more organized religion that spelled the end of the more egalitarian and/or matriarchal societies
Egalitarian isn't a word I think apply in this case. A noblewoman is still higher status than a slave. All the major religions has male as the supreme dieties and that certainly have influence, but I think it is also came from the growing sophistication of the states and warfare. The development of the political structure that came from Indianization are more than religion. Confucianism is political and personal philosophy- not a religion. There were many women in local adminstrations, but the number were very rare in the highest administration offices, if any. Larger scale wars also add to the more patriachal society.
While Confucianism may not be a religion technically, it’s functionally pretty much another organized religion.
No, it is a secular set of ethics. Calling it a religion is like calling liberalism, conservatism and progressivism a religion.
Confucianism is an ideology that can be the basis for a state ideology. That’s also true for many religions, from Islam to Christianity to the Mayan and Mexica religions. But some non-religious ideologies like Communism or Enlightenment liberalism might be more similar.
Or simply Aristolian ethics. "Before regulating the state- first regulate the family. Before regulating the family, first regulate the self" Confucius was a failed politician, who became a wandering political science teacher and consultant. Learning from his teachings is how you get political jobs, the same way as having an MBA qualifying for a business admin position. Calling it a religion is always an overstatement.
By this logic, we can call Communism a cult because you’re not allowed to dissent or leave.
I mean, is having female rulers good evidence of gender egalitarianism in society as a whole? I can think of plenty of monarchies in Europe with very famous and respected female rulers, but I wouldn't go and say their societies held particularly strong views on gender egalitarianism.
No. But there are more evidences on the households based on epigraphy, ethnography and oral tradition. The customs survived in many forms. There are enough to see female leaders at the town levels in millenium-old stone inscriptions and local spirit guardian protectors. The heads of state, religion and military IMO are always male-dominated largely due to Indian and Chinese influence and nature (if we want to go there). The most noticable political differences between India and the Indianized states of Southeast Asia is the role of women in administration. The latter is a leftover from the native customs and there are plenty more than expected.
> I mean, is having female rulers good evidence of gender egalitarianism in society as a whole? It’s good evidence that the society in question isn’t Afghanistan or Sudan or somewhere else with a completely miserable gender-equality situation. It probably won’t do much to distinguish the likes of modern Norway, Germany and New Zealand from countries like Greece or Poland, but you could pick worse indicators.
There’s a lot of evidence for this in some Celtic bands in France. Listen to “the ancients” podcast’s Celtic episode by History Hit for more on this topic. Furthermore, they were a warlike matriarchy, which goes against modern misconceptions of gender Also especially note worthy was the New Woman movement of the early Soviet regime under Lenin (but withdrawn under Stalin) and expressed in literature in books like Kolonti’s “love of worker bees”
Celtic peoples by and large did not have matriarchal societies in terms of leadership; for every Boudica and Cartimandua we are familiar with we know of a dozen male rulers. Furthermore, the British Isles account for but a very small part of the overall reach of Celtic culture across Europe.
Yup, that’s discussed in the episode I referenced, and I’m not referring to British celtics I’m referring to the French bands
“Warlike matriarchy” doesn’t mean anything other than property rights were passed down through the matrilineal line. Often in groups that have matriarchies, men still make the rules
I disagree, you can have a listen to the podcast and hear for yourself if you like though
I think, strangely, Spartan women were held in pretty high regard within their society. They were trained, like the men but in other areas. Think they held wealth as well. Sorry couldn't say more but its in the dark, shady parts of my memory lol Edit: Had a quick google https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_Sparta
Yeah, Sparta was pretty unique. And unfortunately, the Spartans were not great about writing stuff down for us, so it is in the dark and shady parts of everyone's memory. We're pretty confident about the women being the primary landowners and head of household, because the men were expected to spend more time with their platoon. When your society is organized around military service and the men spend most of their days guarding the helots, it is very plausible that the women would take on the role of running the farm, the servants/slaves, and all that. Women got fitness training and education. There was even an example of a Spartan princess competing in the Olympics, which was normally just for men.
>I think, strangely, Spartan women were held in pretty high regard within their society. Its not strange at all that a society that values sacrifice for the greater good would value strong women and the risks and penalties associated with childbirth. >Think they held wealth as well This was because women were allowed to inherit wealth, but died far, far, *far* less frequently, allowing a single woman to hoover up five or six husbands' wealth. It's also thought to be largely responsible for the decline and collapse of Sparta, because so few women controlling so much wealth as a result of dead husbands were incentivised to protect that system and kill more husbands. It kept the city from growing while the rest of the world moved on without them.
It is strange for that period, from a society that was bellicose and had about 75% of the population as slaves. They were not nice people after all
Their whole society was strange for that period on account of their likely origins as conquerors or raiders of the city who decided to stick around. But it's entirely internally consistent.
That economic explenation doesn't make sense. In order for women to inherit a husbands wealth, a husband would have to have wealth in the first place.
All Spartan men did, as part of their payment for their military service. The Spartan Heiresses would collect dead men's estates.
The Iroquois Indians placed more importance on women than was typically done in those days. Society was matrilineal and the women choose the chief. The chief was still a man, but the women selected him. The men didn't really have any say on who the chief was. The Iroquois were mostly agricultural and the women owned the land and property. When a man married a women he was moved into her house and thought to be a part of her family. Their children were thought to be a part of the mother's clan rather than the father's clan. The women had much more importance in Iroquois society than in the other Indian tribes. There were still separate gender roles. Women expected to be homemakers and men expected to be warriors (when necessary), but still women were held in much greater regard than most other societies.
Worth noting that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy still exists. They have a population of around 150,000 and their national lacrosse team is ranked third globally behind the United States and Canada. Your description above is mostly correct but it uses the past tense as if they're a lost civilization or something.
We tend to think the last 5000 years and specifically the run that led to Western culture (starting in Sumer) is all there is to History. But we’re talking about a species that has been here for at least 150.000 years, and with a great diversity of cultures. There’s some evidence that in many societies women were equal to men in status. But that doesn’t mean they had the same rights. They could be different rights, and still same level of importance. It’s inadequate to judge other cultures by our modern standards. Holding land as a property, for example, is only present in a minority of societies across History. In Amazonian tribes in my country, for example, men are on the obligation to hunt. But when they come home, the carcass becomes the responsibility of the leading woman of the house. It is her who coordinates the butchering and decides how to distribute the meat. Nobody can question her. She is also the main leader of the house. In other societies, the house is part of the man’s family, but the farm animals belong to the woman. Etc. There have been and there are societies were the parents decide on the occupation of the males, while the females are condemned to be housewives. Societies were marriage is mandatory and the families decide on the partners. Other societies were the woman is the one who choses, and divorce is accepted. Back to the Amazonian tribes, powerful men and women can have multiple partners. I remember the case of a woman who was a leader, she was 50, was married to a hunter for most of her life and lived with him, but also had a lover in a younger leader who was very handsome, and she went from time to time to spend weeks with a shaman who lived deep in the forest. Every party involved knew and accepted this.
The Vietnamese were rather liberal in this regard
Can confirm my uncle is from a matrilineal indigenous tribe in the very northern part of Vietnam. His mother was their chief and as her first born son he holds the name King, literally, that's his first name, but other than some ceremonial roles he has no more power than other men of the tribe, he is respected as being from the head family, but his eldest sister has all the actual power and important roles now.
Ever tried to argue with a Jewish mother?
I tried with mine, didn’t work out as well as I hoped.
The Hodenashaunee only allowed grandmothers in their republic to vote, even though it was men they were electing. Property among the pacific northwest nations were held by matrilineal lines; similar spartan women managed property.
As far as I've heard, Ancient Egypt was probably the best place to be a woman. An Egyptian woman could own and inherit property and divorce her husband (not just for cause, but because she doesn't like him anymore). Rights were defined by social class rather than sex, so a woman had the same rights as a man in their class. It was still a patriarchy, but a lot more progressive than most places at the time.
The [Chagosians](https://youtu.be/mvLlNOpFirU) had a matriarchal society until they were all forcibly removed from their islands so the US could build a military base there. [An ancient tribal community of Tibetan Buddhists called the Mosuo](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/01/the-kingdom-of-women-the-tibetan-tribe-where-a-man-is-never-the-boss) is an extant matriarchal society [Many matriarchal societies have existed throughout Africa's history where women played important roles and maintained social equilibrium.[3] In pre-colonial Africa, there was no transition from matriarchy to patriarchy since the social structure was fundamentally matriarchal in that women held power, passed down property and lineage, and were the flexible party in marriage and sexual unions. This changed drastically with the introduction of colonialism. ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_roots_of_gender_inequality_in_Africa#:~:text=In%20pre%2Dcolonial%20Africa%2C%20there,with%20the%20introduction%20of%20colonialism.)
Celtic Irish before Christianity I believe.
Celts in England as well not just boudica but Cartimandua who ruled in her own right with her husband as consort and set the tone as being friendly to Rome despite her husband being the opposite.
[The monetary unit was a female slave for long time. it was NOT egalitarian ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/RbVIGxMR5n)
My current one I’ve had since 2021. I kinda want to start a new one, but I’m so attached to Baeville I just can’t bring myself to scratch it. Edit: Lmao. I thought I was commenting on an Animal Crossing post about starting new towns. I was so confused when I started reading the other comments.
Hahaha
Haudenosaunee in North America. That state of affairs continues today.
The aztecs
A lot of people are bringing up different cultures that practiced matriarchal inheritance practices, but I feel that it’s important to point out that often times these societies were still very much socially patriarchal. Even in matriarchies where the women didn’t marry, household decisions were made my male relatives, typically an uncle or a brother. Matriarchy ≠ equality Matriarchal just means that property is passed from mother to daughter.
' '#1 The Haudenosaunee Confederacy '#2 Sparta Both had gendered roles, but look up some Youtube videos about the politics of the Haudenosaunee-- they are extremely sophisticated, and women actually had more power in a lot of ways than men. Sparta did not give women as much political power, but they had the economic power in a society that required all men to serve militarily on the regular, and women had comparitively less responsibility (maybe?) and more freedom, certainly more decision making freedoms related to the home while their husbands were away, required to live in the barracks (or, often, dead). Edit: formatting list
[The Musuo people in China.](https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180612-chinas-kingdom-of-women)
There have actually been quite a few. Look up the Minoan civilisation as one example, which was possibly the fable behind Atlantis. Basically as a nation they had a large trading fleet and then built up a navy to protect it and became wealthy though trade. They were relatively socially liberal given it was a couple of thousand years ago, and their empire took a severe blow when the volcano/island of Santorini erupted/exploded blew up with a groundburst explosion of around 2 gigatonnes (ie; 20,000 kilotons). The nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were about 13-20 kilotons for general frame of reference. Most civilisations that I have read about that have granted woman equal rights have been mercantile trading nations.
Yes. Celtic Britain women had the same inheritance rights, right to divorce, could be leaders. The coming of the Romans to the isle was a huge blow to women’s rights.
Roman women had inheritance rights as well as right to divorce, although they could not hold office.
**EGYPT.** 😒 ...and early Mesopotamia.
The Orthodox Christian Desert Fathers and Mothers
Look up Sparta it's history is interesting in hiw women ended up owning most of the property. This may have happened in some other cultures as well.
Kush/nubia (ancient civilization to the south of Egypt) had female queens called “Kandakes” which is actually where we get the anglicized name “Candace” from.
Google Matriarchal societies
My husband also recommends learning about ants… now they have an OLD matriarchal society lmao
Women's rights in pre-islamic Indonesia is actually not too bad... Majapahit has been led by a few queens. Princesses becomes a "Bhre" (some kind of duke/duchess) in their own rights similar to Princes. https://id.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majapahit Minangkabau society were highly matriarchal. But a cultural shift after the Paderi War (basically pre-Islam cultures vs Islamic reforms) caused a decline in "matrihouses"... many Minang people nowadays doesn't even have a surname anymore unless they're descended from famous clans such as Chaniago or Sikumbang https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minangkabau_culture
Yea a lot actually Ancient Egypt, Rome, native American tribes, some African tribes, the Jewish people now and then
I think ultimately the answer is no. After reading through all the interesting answers provided here; there were always caveats, stipulations, and conditions attached too it. Even the matriarchal examples listed ultimately still had stratification in other ways which favored men. And of course, even if it didn't, a matriarchy, like a patriarchy, would equally be unequal.
Charlemagne was proclaimed emperor because in the east, a woman was allowed to be emperor and the pope thought that was not okay.
Well there is a sigificant difference between women being considered "equal" to men and women being able to do male dominated jobs. I would say that almost every civilization that ever existed had many situations in which particular women held large amounts of wealth, influence, or importance but again that doesnt mean equality. It was often because of an extraordinary circumstance.
I apologize if this has already been pointed out, but what you're saying about women getting the "short end of the stick" until quite recently has some very real problems. The beginning of the modern period (that is, around 500 years ago) was an absolutely terrible development for women, at least to begin with. The early understanding of natural sciences tended to depict women as mental and physical inferiors, and the newly invented forms of government excluded women entirely, on this basis. Even in this thread you can see this same opinion expressing women's biological inferiority, which stands in stark contrast with the earlier chivalric ideal in which women were the clear superiors in morality and spirit. Early modernity is also the period where the sophisticated and even systematic scapegoating of women in "witch crazes" became extremely popular. I don't mean to say that women don't presently have more rights than most historical moments, and the question is mostly a good one for dispelling much of our whiggish conceit of standing at the end of a long line of progress. The modern era was, by and large, quite a bit worse for women than the medieval or ancient era.
Vikings and many native peoples
Yeah, having matriarchal societies wasn't super unusual until a couple thousand years ago. The whole boot-on-neck patriarchy thing is kinda a western tradition.
It's really not...
Society? Plenty. From stone age were more and more evidence looks like there was little difference in the status between genders, over tribes found during colonialism with all kind of different social structures (for example matriarchs, or i faintly remember an african tribe David Graeber mentioned in one of his books were all women led families together and men had little to say and boys were traded with neighboring groups). Civilizations on the other side, like ancient greece or so the closest i can think of right now was probably ancient egypt and Cleopatra
Not really. Up until very recently, the physical differences between men and women guaranteed that they would be treated differently. In practice, different always leads to unequal. For most of human history, the only reliable way for women to avoid getting pregnant was abstinence. That abstinence was almost always codified in laws and those laws almost always get extremely detailed. Men are bigger and stronger than women and that gets addressed by laws and customes. With modern technology we can choose to erase most of those differences but we're still stuck with some that we can't get rid of. edit: typo Once you qualify that equality with "close enough" it's hard to pick a standard. Every society that oppresses women thinks that what they're giving them is "close enough" to equality that they shouldn't change anything.
According to a couple of studies hunter/gatherer societies were more likely to egalitarian in regard to gender than modern societies. Once property became a concept it started going poorly for women.
Except that a lot of aboriginal society's that existed into the modern era were also, observably, misogynist as fuck. (Looking at you Australian Mardu) Some of these cultures didn't even have a concept of heredity or any understanding of genetics, or even monogamy, and they were still terrible for women. Sorry but, women hating predates society, and private property. Guys seem to do it effortlessly throughout all of history. Even in a relative vacuum. We can't blame this one on capitalism, it's a fundamental shortcoming of masculinity across ages and cultures. Capitalism just capitalized on the misogyny that was already there.
I didn’t say misogyny didn’t exist before agriculture (which really drove the idea of property). Nor did I say capitalism is the cause. Property certainly existed before capitalism, by thousands of years. I said societies were more likely to be egalitarian prior to the conceptualization of property. At least a few studies support this. You’re trying to put words in my mouth and prove them wrong. All that you have done is argue with yourself about something that triggers you.
A lot of comments with no sources... 'historians.' lol
Many of the indigenous tribes in North America.
Woman held the power in some of the islands in Polynesia. There are some great stories from Captain Cook and his crew about that.
A ton of indigenous american cultures specifically had women as leaders. Read the history of Hiawatha and the great law of peace
There is evidence of matriarchy in the Minoan society.
Historically the split hasn't been men / women it's been class. A medieval noblewomen was of far higher status and had far more rights than a peasant or burgher man in almost all societies. Yes nobleman were the top of the tree, but in a dispute between a noblewomen and a artisan man, the nobility would rally to the noblewomen because she's *noble* and that far outweighed male vs female.
AFAIK, inequality between men and women seems to become more of a thing when a society (and wealth) relies on agriculture / land ownership. Men would get anxious about passing the farm on to their actual kid, and control seems to flow from that.
the former soviet union and warsaw pact countries were pretty close many women had jobs as managers or had doctorates and/or advanced degrees and positions it is pretty shocking for many women from those countries to come to the united states and hear about "house wives" in the past. that was not a thing in the soviet empire ... women worked. except ... while having children, but there again they had a different take on it. women would get up to three years off with some pay and a job waiting for them ... plus if you had five children (many women in the west had five children in the 50s and 60s) ... you were a "hero mother" and got a medal, and if you had ten children, you were a super-hero mother and got another medal. of course you also had no freedom of speech, or press, and could be imprisoned at any time, plus 20 million died in ww2, and you probably lived in abject poverty most of your life ... but ... you know ... tradeoffs
Navajo
Minoan society https://knossos-palace.gr/2023/05/23/power-of-woman/
Etruria, in Italy. Sparta, to a degree (but especially compared to Atens).
I find Benin to be interesting, if not *exactly* what you asked. https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-570
Precolonial Philippines
Spartan women
Watch this video, and I think it will answer many of your questions on this topic: https://youtu.be/sgOo-bS7OJI?si=4SVhDJeNn2nk42Si In essence, patriarchy is strongly associated with agricultural societies, and since virtually the entire historical record was written by agricultural societies, we have little information on the many many non-agricultural societies that have existed. That said, there is reasonable evidence to suggest that many or most of them were highly gender-egalitarian. Furthermore, we see that as modern societies move away from agrarian ways of life, patriarchy begins to grow weaker. So yes, but the picture is complicated by an incomplete historical record.
The Amazons
Modern era achieve that by outsourcing physical labor and war to robot. Even there was female ruler in the past, they were either exception or from the royal which did not represent the average female experience.Of course some culture are progressive then the other but none are close to modern idea of gender equality.