0:05 since the dawn of recorded time the vast
0:07 majority of human societies have been
0:09 led by men and that raises the question
0:12 is patriarchy just the natural way of
0:14 things I'm Amy MC Al best and today
0:16 we're going on a journey through time to
0:19 answer that
0:21 question let's start with our DNA the
0:24 two closest relatives of humans
0:26 Genetically speaking are chimpanzees and
0:28 bonobos but although these two animal
0:31 groups are genetically almost identical
0:33 their behaviors and social structures
0:35 couldn't be more different chimpanzees
0:38 are highly patriarchal among chimps it's
0:41 the males and more specifically one
0:43 alpha male who acts as the leader
0:45 determines where the groups move how
0:47 they hunt and gather who gets to mate
0:50 with whom and how they interact with one
0:52 another on a daily basis chimpanzees are
0:55 also notoriously violent and it's not
0:57 uncommon for them to attack and kill
1:00 other chimps bonobos on the other hand
1:02 are primarily matriarchal at the top of
1:05 every bonovo Community is one old and
1:08 experienced matriarch who presides over
1:10 a small Coalition of high ranking
1:11 females with maybe one or two males
1:14 mixed in in general relationships are
1:17 positive they share food and territory
1:18 and there isn't much fighting even
1:20 between different communities if a male
1:23 becomes aggressive with a female a group
1:25 of female bonobos ban together to
1:27 physically punish him making sure he
1:29 doesn't get out of line again even
1:31 though Fe female bonobos are typically
1:34 smaller than males they figured out how
1:36 to work together and they use their
1:38 combined power to create a mostly
1:40 peaceful Society where violence is extremely
1:42 extremely
1:45 rare many scientists point to the
1:47 bonobos as evidence that patriarchy
1:50 isn't simply the natural inevitable
1:53 social structure for primates and that
1:56 perhaps Homo sapiens could have chosen
1:59 another way so what systems did our
2:02 earliest human ancestors create 7
2:04 million years ago a primate called
2:06 philanthropist chenis developed a trait
2:08 that would change the course of history
2:12 forever it began walking upright over
2:14 time this upright posture led to a
2:16 narrowing of the female pelvis and birth
2:19 canal as a result in order for their
2:21 heads to fit through the birth canal
2:23 babies started to be born at an early
2:26 gestational stage these newborns were
2:28 completely dependent on their mothers
2:30 for a much longer per period than other
2:33 primates requiring several years of
2:35 constant care as opposed to only a few
2:37 months for other primates now skip
2:38 forward to the descendants of those
2:42 upright Walkers Homo sapiens or wise
2:44 humans as we've called ourselves over
2:47 300,000 years ago Homo sapiens began to
2:49 harness the power of fire shape tools
2:52 and paint stories on the walls of caves
2:54 these early humans were hunter gatherers
2:57 where everyone had to pitch in to ensure
2:59 survival there was most likely a rough
3:02 division of labor with males performing
3:04 much of the hunting and females at least
3:06 during their fertile years giving birth
3:08 and taking care of those adorable
3:10 helpless babies that we just talked
3:12 about women also contributed to human
3:13 survival through their knowledge of
3:16 plants for food and medicine and the
3:18 creation of clay and woven vessels that
3:20 contained that food and medicine at the
3:23 same time these roles may not have been
3:26 as divided as we might think for example
3:29 in 2020 the remains of a 9,000-year old
3:31 big game h Hunter was found in the Andes
3:33 this Hunter was buried with specialized
3:36 tools for hunting big game and while
3:38 there was nothing particularly unusual
3:40 about the body researchers noticed that
3:42 the leg bones seemed a little slim for
3:45 an adult Hunter when scientists analyzed
3:47 the tooth enamel for DNA markers they
3:49 discovered that the hunter whom they had
3:52 assumed was male was actually female
3:53 because of this discovery they went on
3:56 to test the bodies of 26 other hunters
3:58 and they found that 10 of them were female
4:03 it's also important to point out that
4:06 even if hunter gatherer groups did
4:08 divide labor by sex that doesn't
4:10 necessarily indicate that one gender was
4:12 telling the other one what to do
4:14 anthropologists agreed that despite
4:16 their different biological functions
4:19 early human societies seem to have been
4:21 egalitarian so let's pause here and
4:24 Define egalitarianism egalitarianism is
4:27 a belief in the equality of all people
4:29 especially in political social and econ
4:33 economic life so what happened when
4:35 these Wanderers began to settle down and
4:39 form cities did they ever form
4:42 matriarchies some scholars believe that
4:44 they did the world's oldest official
4:47 city is a settlement in modern turkey
4:49 called Kato hoyuk it was inhabited
4:53 between about 7500 and 5700 BCE during
4:56 the Neolithic era for context that's
4:59 5,000 years before the pyramids were
5:01 built bu in Egypt and at least 4,000
5:03 years before Stonehenge was built in
5:06 what is now the UK prior to excavations
5:09 in katal hoyuk Bronze Age societies were
5:11 thought to have been the oldest Advanced
5:13 civilizations one Bronze Age
5:16 civilization was called the monan
5:18 civilization on the island of cre which
5:21 flourished from about 3,000 to 1100 BCE
5:23 and although the people of K hoyuk and
5:25 the Minoans were far away from each
5:27 other and flourished in completely
5:29 different time periods they had a lot of
5:31 important things in common one of which
5:34 was Art and artifacts depicting women
5:36 like a lot of
5:39 them when archaeologists first began
5:41 excavations of katal hoyuk one of the
5:43 most important objects they found was a
5:46 statue that they named the seated woman
5:48 of Kat hoyuk and I actually have a
5:55 here here She is look at her with these
5:58 large animals under her control on
6:00 either side she looks strong and
6:03 powerful and grounded in her body I feel
6:05 like you can't look at this seated woman
6:07 and not feel her commanding [Music]
6:09 [Music]
6:11 presence figures and paintings of
6:14 females like this and this and this were
6:16 also found in overwhelming numbers all
6:18 over Neolithic and Bronze Age
6:20 archaeological sites all across the
6:22 middle east in Europe but because very
6:25 few of these civilizations Left Behind
6:27 written records that we can understand
6:30 we don't know exactly who these female
6:32 Figures were nor what they meant in
6:35 their respective societies at first some
6:37 male archaeologists thought of these
6:40 images as prehistoric pornography what
6:42 did you say but Scholars such as Maria
6:45 gudas thought of them as goddesses in
6:47 fact gim budas dedicated her life to
6:50 studying and comparing these female
6:53 focused Societies in the 1960s and70s
6:56 gas' theories gave rise to a spiritual
6:58 goddess movement with many women
7:00 proclaiming the supremacy of the ancient
7:03 goddess and reclaiming woman centered
7:05 spirituality some even started referring
7:08 to these prehistoric cultures as
7:11 matriarchies remember that if patriarchy
7:13 means that boys and men have a
7:16 Birthright to preside over women then a
7:19 matriarchy would mean that girls and
7:21 women have a birth right to preside over
7:25 boys and men the way bonobos do so what
7:27 do you think does archaeological
7:30 evidence indicate matriarchy
7:32 I would say there's just not enough
7:34 evidence as compelling as these goddess
7:37 images are and as much as some women
7:40 have longed for a matriarchal P most
7:41 Scholars who have written about these
7:44 societies including gudas have argued
7:47 that the worship of goddesses doesn't
7:49 necessarily indicate High status for
7:52 women in their everyday lives let alone
7:54 matriarchy one point that makes a lot of
7:56 sense to me is from historian Gera
7:58 Learner in her book the creation of
8:00 patriarchy she points out that if
8:02 archaeologists of the future were to
8:05 excavate sites from the Middle Ages in
8:07 Europe they would find thousands of
8:10 statues of the Virgin Mary and other
8:12 female saints and that might lead them
8:14 to think that Medieval Europe had been a
8:17 matriarchy as we all know that was far
8:20 from true so if these early human
8:22 societies weren't matriarchies what were
8:25 they social scientist Dr Rianne Eiser
8:28 calls them partnership cultures and
8:30 what's a partnership culture I called Dr
8:33 Eiser to have her explain it to us hi Dr
8:35 Eiser thank you so much for joining us
8:38 today it's a pleasure I'm wondering if
8:40 you could tell us a little bit about
8:42 partnership cultures just some of the
8:43 features that were found in the
8:46 Neolithic period for
8:49 Millennia we humans oriented more to the
8:52 partnership side we don't see the
8:56 ranking of the male form over the female
9:00 form and very rigid gender
9:03 stereotypes as the archaeologist Yan
9:06 harder who excavated chatal huak as he
9:09 wrote there are no signs that being born
9:12 male or female made any difference in
9:15 status or in wealth there are no signs
9:18 of Destruction through Warfare well what
9:22 does this indicate a belief system in
9:26 which interconnection is more important
9:28 than ranking thank you so much that was
9:30 beautiful now back to the ancient city
9:33 of katal hoyuk before it was excavated
9:35 it had been the assumption that
9:37 prehistoric cultures were all male
9:40 dominated but Kat hauk challenged that
9:42 assumption for example the bones of
9:45 these ancient people showed evidence
9:47 that everyone's diets were similar their
9:49 graves and their burial practices showed
9:51 that men and women were buried with the
9:54 same amount of wealth the size and setup
9:56 of their houses their sleeping places
9:58 their places of gathering all indicate
10:00 that there were no gender-based
10:03 hierarchies in katle hauk similarly the
10:06 Minoans also challenged the idea of male
10:08 dominance throughout history evidence in
10:10 art architecture and burial sites on
10:13 Manan creit demonstrate an equitable
10:16 sharing of wealth access to Advanced
10:18 Technology such as drainage and sanitary
10:21 systems for all people in the community
10:23 as well as daily activities and rituals
10:25 that promoted harmonious and peaceful
10:28 living all features of a partnership
10:31 Society so if there were many ancient
10:33 civilizations that were egalitarian
10:37 partnership cultures we have to ask what
10:38 happened to them in her book The Living
10:41 goddesses Maria gim Buddhas posits that
10:43 eventually these partnership cultures
10:46 were conquered and slowly eroded by what
10:48 she calls Dominator cultures so let's
10:50 check back in with Dr Eiser so she can
10:52 explain some features of Dominator
10:55 societies it's really a domination
10:58 system starting in families you have
11:02 these rankings of domination this is
11:05 where we're socialized to think only of
11:09 two possibilities you either dominate or
11:11 you're dominated and it's backed up by
11:15 fear and by force the conquest that
11:18 eroded partnership societies happened in
11:20 many different places over the course of
11:21 centuries and there's lots of
11:24 disagreement between Scholars about when
11:26 and how patriarchy began so there are
11:29 multiple theories and archaeologists are
11:31 still trying to put the puzzle pieces
11:33 together to figure out what actually
11:35 happened but however it developed
11:37 historian gerdle learner notes that
11:39 these new practices probably developed
11:42 slowly and organically and that neither
11:45 men nor women knew the consequences that
11:47 would come of these initial choices
11:49 women may have agreed to a sexual
11:51 division of labor not being able to
11:53 predict the ways in which it would
11:55 eventually disadvantage them and most
11:58 men were probably not plotting the
12:00 subjugation of women on purpose but she
12:02 also notes that whether it was on
12:05 purpose or not patriarchy did indeed
12:07 entrench itself and the lasting
12:09 psychological damage of the patriarchal
12:12 state is that it made patriarchy seem
12:14 normal even natural in the same way that
12:16 class and racial oppression have
12:19 historically been framed As Natural by
12:22 those in power so that brings us back to
12:25 our original question is patriarchy just
12:28 the natural way of things well to
12:30 summarize here's what we know humans
12:32 closest primate relatives are both
12:34 patriarchal and matriarchal and some
12:36 scientists point to this as evidence
12:39 that homo sapiens could have gone either
12:42 way next the earliest human societies do
12:44 not seem to have been patriarchal they
12:46 weren't matriarchal either but they were
12:49 egalitarian partnership cultures many
12:52 scholars also point to that as evidence
12:54 that humans aren't naturally patriarchal
12:57 at the same time Dominator cultures seem
13:00 to have overthrown partnership cultures
13:03 all over the world establishing a long
13:06 history of patriarchy is patriarchy just
13:09 the natural way of things I would ask
13:13 what if it is guess what else is natural
13:15 disease and social hierarchies that
13:18 persecute humans that look different or
13:20 behave differently or think differently
13:23 exist in every society all over the
13:25 world so you could argue that that's
13:28 natural too listen we're now waiting
13:30 into timeless and super controversial
13:33 territory about human nature and while
13:35 I'm personally very interested in the
13:37 scientific data and the ongoing
13:40 philosophical analysis to me the more
13:43 important question is whether it's
13:45 natural or not what are we going to do about
13:46 about [Music]
14:00 it
14:01 thanks for joining me be sure to like
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14:05 and leave a comment about what you
14:06 learned from this episode in the comments
