The content explores whether patriarchy is an inherent or natural state for human societies, examining evidence from primate behavior, early human history, and ancient civilizations to argue that egalitarian "partnership cultures" were likely the norm before the rise of "dominator cultures" and entrenched patriarchy.
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since the dawn of recorded time the vast
majority of human societies have been
led by men and that raises the question
is patriarchy just the natural way of
things I'm Amy MC Al best and today
we're going on a journey through time to
answer that
question let's start with our DNA the
two closest relatives of humans
Genetically speaking are chimpanzees and
bonobos but although these two animal
groups are genetically almost identical
their behaviors and social structures
couldn't be more different chimpanzees
are highly patriarchal among chimps it's
the males and more specifically one
alpha male who acts as the leader
determines where the groups move how
they hunt and gather who gets to mate
with whom and how they interact with one
another on a daily basis chimpanzees are
also notoriously violent and it's not
uncommon for them to attack and kill
other chimps bonobos on the other hand
are primarily matriarchal at the top of
every bonovo Community is one old and
experienced matriarch who presides over
a small Coalition of high ranking
females with maybe one or two males
mixed in in general relationships are
positive they share food and territory
and there isn't much fighting even
between different communities if a male
becomes aggressive with a female a group
of female bonobos ban together to
physically punish him making sure he
doesn't get out of line again even
though Fe female bonobos are typically
smaller than males they figured out how
to work together and they use their
combined power to create a mostly
peaceful Society where violence is extremely
extremely
rare many scientists point to the
bonobos as evidence that patriarchy
isn't simply the natural inevitable
social structure for primates and that
perhaps Homo sapiens could have chosen
another way so what systems did our
earliest human ancestors create 7
million years ago a primate called
philanthropist chenis developed a trait
that would change the course of history
forever it began walking upright over
time this upright posture led to a
narrowing of the female pelvis and birth
canal as a result in order for their
heads to fit through the birth canal
babies started to be born at an early
gestational stage these newborns were
completely dependent on their mothers
for a much longer per period than other
primates requiring several years of
constant care as opposed to only a few
months for other primates now skip
forward to the descendants of those
upright Walkers Homo sapiens or wise
humans as we've called ourselves over
300,000 years ago Homo sapiens began to
harness the power of fire shape tools
and paint stories on the walls of caves
these early humans were hunter gatherers
where everyone had to pitch in to ensure
survival there was most likely a rough
division of labor with males performing
much of the hunting and females at least
during their fertile years giving birth
and taking care of those adorable
helpless babies that we just talked
about women also contributed to human
survival through their knowledge of
plants for food and medicine and the
creation of clay and woven vessels that
contained that food and medicine at the
same time these roles may not have been
as divided as we might think for example
in 2020 the remains of a 9,000-year old
big game h Hunter was found in the Andes
this Hunter was buried with specialized
tools for hunting big game and while
there was nothing particularly unusual
about the body researchers noticed that
the leg bones seemed a little slim for
an adult Hunter when scientists analyzed
the tooth enamel for DNA markers they
discovered that the hunter whom they had
assumed was male was actually female
because of this discovery they went on
to test the bodies of 26 other hunters
and they found that 10 of them were female
it's also important to point out that
even if hunter gatherer groups did
divide labor by sex that doesn't
necessarily indicate that one gender was
telling the other one what to do
anthropologists agreed that despite
their different biological functions
early human societies seem to have been
egalitarian so let's pause here and
Define egalitarianism egalitarianism is
a belief in the equality of all people
especially in political social and econ
economic life so what happened when
these Wanderers began to settle down and
form cities did they ever form
matriarchies some scholars believe that
they did the world's oldest official
city is a settlement in modern turkey
called Kato hoyuk it was inhabited
between about 7500 and 5700 BCE during
the Neolithic era for context that's
5,000 years before the pyramids were
built bu in Egypt and at least 4,000
years before Stonehenge was built in
what is now the UK prior to excavations
in katal hoyuk Bronze Age societies were
thought to have been the oldest Advanced
civilizations one Bronze Age
civilization was called the monan
civilization on the island of cre which
flourished from about 3,000 to 1100 BCE
and although the people of K hoyuk and
the Minoans were far away from each
other and flourished in completely
different time periods they had a lot of
important things in common one of which
was Art and artifacts depicting women
like a lot of
them when archaeologists first began
excavations of katal hoyuk one of the
most important objects they found was a
statue that they named the seated woman
of Kat hoyuk and I actually have a
here here She is look at her with these
large animals under her control on
either side she looks strong and
powerful and grounded in her body I feel
like you can't look at this seated woman
and not feel her commanding [Music]
[Music]
presence figures and paintings of
females like this and this and this were
also found in overwhelming numbers all
over Neolithic and Bronze Age
archaeological sites all across the
middle east in Europe but because very
few of these civilizations Left Behind
written records that we can understand
we don't know exactly who these female
Figures were nor what they meant in
their respective societies at first some
male archaeologists thought of these
images as prehistoric pornography what
did you say but Scholars such as Maria
gudas thought of them as goddesses in
fact gim budas dedicated her life to
studying and comparing these female
focused Societies in the 1960s and70s
gas' theories gave rise to a spiritual
goddess movement with many women
proclaiming the supremacy of the ancient
goddess and reclaiming woman centered
spirituality some even started referring
to these prehistoric cultures as
matriarchies remember that if patriarchy
means that boys and men have a
Birthright to preside over women then a
matriarchy would mean that girls and
women have a birth right to preside over
boys and men the way bonobos do so what
do you think does archaeological
evidence indicate matriarchy
I would say there's just not enough
evidence as compelling as these goddess
images are and as much as some women
have longed for a matriarchal P most
Scholars who have written about these
societies including gudas have argued
that the worship of goddesses doesn't
necessarily indicate High status for
women in their everyday lives let alone
matriarchy one point that makes a lot of
sense to me is from historian Gera
Learner in her book the creation of
patriarchy she points out that if
archaeologists of the future were to
excavate sites from the Middle Ages in
Europe they would find thousands of
statues of the Virgin Mary and other
female saints and that might lead them
to think that Medieval Europe had been a
matriarchy as we all know that was far
from true so if these early human
societies weren't matriarchies what were
they social scientist Dr Rianne Eiser
calls them partnership cultures and
what's a partnership culture I called Dr
Eiser to have her explain it to us hi Dr
Eiser thank you so much for joining us
today it's a pleasure I'm wondering if
you could tell us a little bit about
partnership cultures just some of the
features that were found in the
Neolithic period for
Millennia we humans oriented more to the
partnership side we don't see the
ranking of the male form over the female
form and very rigid gender
stereotypes as the archaeologist Yan
harder who excavated chatal huak as he
wrote there are no signs that being born
male or female made any difference in
status or in wealth there are no signs
of Destruction through Warfare well what
does this indicate a belief system in
which interconnection is more important
than ranking thank you so much that was
beautiful now back to the ancient city
of katal hoyuk before it was excavated
it had been the assumption that
prehistoric cultures were all male
dominated but Kat hauk challenged that
assumption for example the bones of
these ancient people showed evidence
that everyone's diets were similar their
graves and their burial practices showed
that men and women were buried with the
same amount of wealth the size and setup
of their houses their sleeping places
their places of gathering all indicate
that there were no gender-based
hierarchies in katle hauk similarly the
Minoans also challenged the idea of male
dominance throughout history evidence in
art architecture and burial sites on
Manan creit demonstrate an equitable
sharing of wealth access to Advanced
Technology such as drainage and sanitary
systems for all people in the community
as well as daily activities and rituals
that promoted harmonious and peaceful
living all features of a partnership
Society so if there were many ancient
civilizations that were egalitarian
partnership cultures we have to ask what
happened to them in her book The Living
goddesses Maria gim Buddhas posits that
eventually these partnership cultures
were conquered and slowly eroded by what
she calls Dominator cultures so let's
check back in with Dr Eiser so she can
explain some features of Dominator
societies it's really a domination
system starting in families you have
these rankings of domination this is
where we're socialized to think only of
two possibilities you either dominate or
you're dominated and it's backed up by
fear and by force the conquest that
eroded partnership societies happened in
many different places over the course of
centuries and there's lots of
disagreement between Scholars about when
and how patriarchy began so there are
multiple theories and archaeologists are
still trying to put the puzzle pieces
together to figure out what actually
happened but however it developed
historian gerdle learner notes that
these new practices probably developed
slowly and organically and that neither
men nor women knew the consequences that
would come of these initial choices
women may have agreed to a sexual
division of labor not being able to
predict the ways in which it would
eventually disadvantage them and most
men were probably not plotting the
subjugation of women on purpose but she
also notes that whether it was on
purpose or not patriarchy did indeed
entrench itself and the lasting
psychological damage of the patriarchal
state is that it made patriarchy seem
normal even natural in the same way that
class and racial oppression have
historically been framed As Natural by
those in power so that brings us back to
our original question is patriarchy just
the natural way of things well to
summarize here's what we know humans
closest primate relatives are both
patriarchal and matriarchal and some
scientists point to this as evidence
that homo sapiens could have gone either
way next the earliest human societies do
not seem to have been patriarchal they
weren't matriarchal either but they were
egalitarian partnership cultures many
scholars also point to that as evidence
that humans aren't naturally patriarchal
at the same time Dominator cultures seem
to have overthrown partnership cultures
all over the world establishing a long
history of patriarchy is patriarchy just
the natural way of things I would ask
what if it is guess what else is natural
disease and social hierarchies that
persecute humans that look different or
behave differently or think differently
exist in every society all over the
world so you could argue that that's
natural too listen we're now waiting
into timeless and super controversial
territory about human nature and while
I'm personally very interested in the
scientific data and the ongoing
philosophical analysis to me the more
important question is whether it's
natural or not what are we going to do about
about [Music]
it
thanks for joining me be sure to like
this video And subscribe to the channel
and leave a comment about what you
learned from this episode in the comments
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