The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule

‘We have the discussion of a third gender in the creation stories, which is the person that is called a nádleehí, or a third gendered person,’ explains Denetdale. ‘This was the person who displayed skills and talents of being a negotiator and a mediator between men and women, usually dressed as a feminine person.’

But control over food production did give women economic agency and, with it, social freedom.

‘Long Jaid na ka Kynthei’. It means ‘all people sprang from the woman’.

On the contrary, she found that kin relationships in other primates are consistently organised through mothers rather than fathers. This may not be hugely significant – it could well be that humans are just different – but it was so persistent a feature that it led Thompson to wonder whether scientists who had studied humans might have underestimat

Primates, it seems, don’t like to be ruled by bullies or treated unfairly: some of the key traits linked to dominance are kindness, sociability, and cooperation. Even the physically smallest chimpanzee can end up being the alpha if he shows an ability to win trust and loyalty, adds de Waal.

Researchers estimate that around 70 per cent of societies around the world are patrilocal, meaning people tend to live with their fathers’ families. Matrilocality, where people stay with or near their mothers’ families throughout their lives, often goes hand in hand with matriliny.

After all, this is how social transformation usually works: by normalising what would have been unthinkable before.

Female leadership is seen not just among bonobos, but also among killer whales, lions, spotted hyenas, lemurs, and elephants.

As the professor of women’s studies Chandra Talpade Mohanty has asked, ‘How is it possible to refer to “the” sexual division of labor when the content of this division changes radically from one environment to the next, and from one historical juncture to another?’ If there were some fundamental aspects of male and female natures that put men in co