gender in past civilizations

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.

I think it would be a fallacy to use modern terms like "Chauvinistic" and "feminist" for these old societys.

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.