QuoteReplyTopic: gender in past civilizations Posted: 31-Oct-2007 at 19:22
from what I've learned about ancient civilizations, the ancient Iranian peoples, whether sedentary Persians or Samartian nomads, seem to have conserved rather high social status for their women.
The Greeks, Phoenecians, and Jews, however, were known to be Chauvanistic.
Phoenicians weren't particularly patriarchial (not anymore than anybody else, anyway). Their war deity was a goddess (Anat) and many of their more important deities were also female (Astarte, Asherah - the sea goddess - of the Sea People!). Plus there were several real life figures like Dido/Elishat, who founded Carthage.
I was reading about gender in an ethologic article yesterday. Basically it said that primates like the gibbons had a very high degree of gender equality (from stature, to body weight, to occupation) which was enshrined by a strict monogamy, while other like the gorilla had a high degree of gender inequality (male being significantly bogger than the female and having different occupation) enshrined by large harems.
It's always problematic to transfer blantly from one spieces to another specially when one of these species in the human one. But maybe we could say that population with the less difference in terms of body mass and stature between men and women are the descendants of the most gender equal civilizations.
Considering the whole population also avoids just looking at elite culture which we tend to do when simply looking at written records or archeological sources.
So based on personal observation, it would make sense to say that Northern Europeans, Sahel Africans and some East Asian groups are the most serious competitor for the most equal society.
To all of the ass-holes who responded above! F--k off! But to the others "Amen!"
There exists, at least according to me!, no lack of evidence that at the "origin" society was "matriarchal" to the extreem! There could be no doubt about the next "king" or "queen" when the sucessor was born right in front of the populace! This seems to have possibly happened even with the so called Roman (Pontificate) also!
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