Equality WI?

Define same esteem.

For western cultures by exemple.

Is for men and women being undifferenciated regarding their access to the same possibilities (then even OTL, it's not saldy happening for now, when it leads this way)?
Or is it, while men continues to keep the upper social hand, women having an important role (no XIX-like crumble of women situation)?

If it's the latter, no reintroduction of roman law from Byzantium could do (being an hard thing to do in first place) : while women were banned of many social spheres, they had a better situation, relative to Greek-Roman antiquity and later periods (it can be safely said that the individual medieval woman had more rights than the individual victorian woman) even if it's certainly lower than the situation women can enjoy nowadays.

A continuous definition of family trough matrilinear line instead of the only patrilinear one could really do, but ask for a greater germanisation of elites.

The triumph of peasant assemblies as first form of democracy would be extremly hard, but would be somewhat easier than urban's that tended to favour head of families, almost always men.

Earlier PoD would be probably easier, but having more unknown effects : it is totally possible to have a woman-friendly antiquity. While Greeks and Romans were really misogynists, Etruscean women could walk freely (and even had a proper name, not their father or spouse).
 
Define same esteem.

For western cultures by exemple.

Is for men and women being undifferenciated regarding their access to the same possibilities (then even OTL, it's not saldy happening for now, when it leads this way)?
Or is it, while men continues to keep the upper social hand, women having an important role (no XIX-like crumble of women situation)?

If it's the latter, no reintroduction of roman law from Byzantium could do (being an hard thing to do in first place) : while women were banned of many social spheres, they had a better situation, relative to Greek-Roman antiquity and later periods (it can be safely said that the individual medieval woman had more rights than the individual victorian woman) even if it's certainly lower than the situation women can enjoy nowadays.

A continuous definition of family trough matrilinear line instead of the only patrilinear one could really do, but ask for a greater germanisation of elites.

The triumph of peasant assemblies as first form of democracy would be extremly hard, but would be somewhat easier than urban's that tended to favour head of families, almost always men.

Earlier PoD would be probably easier, but having more unknown effects : it is totally possible to have a woman-friendly antiquity. While Greeks and Romans were really misogynists, Etruscean women could walk freely (and even had a proper name, not their father or spouse).

More or less, there are no Gender roles in society. Women could inherit the throne, assuming they are first in the birth order or fight in the armies and become generals. Men could spend their lives looking after the children or making clothing.

No one this this is strange.
 
More or less, there are no Gender roles in society. Women could inherit the throne, assuming they are first in the birth order or fight in the armies and become generals. Men could spend their lives looking after the children or making clothing.

No one this this is strange.

There are biological reasons why this won't happen. It doesn't even happen now, when the conditions are much more favorable for it. Pregnancy and hormones are a big fargin' deal, especially before modern medicine. Physical strength is also a big fargin' deal in pre-modern combat.

There are also efficiency reasons. Role specialization leads to efficiency gains. The dirty little secret of statecraft is that a little oppression usually makes your tribe/nation/city/culture a little more capable. The idea that doing what's pleasantest for individuals is what makes you best off collectively is an insipid fantasy. In a pre-modern setting, the nasty patriarchs will squash the Utopidae like a bug.
 
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I think one possible way to achieve something like this is going the route of Land of Red and Gold route (aka modifying/creating staple food).

Yam is already a widespread food source, native to Africa. Just add the same phytoestrogens and plant sterols that the yam variety at the Trobriand Islands had. There effect as mild contraceptives apparently obfuscated the practical link between sex and pregnancy. This should give humanity a head start on gender equality from the very beginning, assuming that early civilization don't abandoned yams production.

Generally it should be possible to achieve similar effects in any domesticated plant due too some random lucky mutation in the breeding process done by early civilizations (That would also give us a purely human POD thus keeping it out of ASB).
 
What if men and women had always been held in the same esteem in all human cultures?

I guess you'd need to radically change the evolution of mammals in the first place. I'm afraid that nothing short of that would work. "men and women" would be nearly aliens in comparison with what they are now.
 
Could you get 'equal esteem' in some societies? Yes, aguably there are some.

But men and women have differing roles historically, whether societies are hunter gatherer or agricultural. Largely this is biological, as already stated, and partly it's efficient division of labour. The VALUE assigned to these roles can be equal in some times and places, but social, environmental or cultural changes WILL change the value of the roles, and one gender or the other is likely to get dominant.

As men tend very strongly to have the hunting and warfare roles, increased reliance on meat and increased conflict with neighbours tends to up the role of men. If meat supply is less important, and conflict with neighbouring groups is low, you are more likely to get female dominance.

Since conflict is pretty common, men do tend to dominate.

Even if you did get a balanced culture, at some point theresgoing to be migration into your territory, or youll be forced to migrate out. Or theres a drought, and food supply in general goes down. In any of those cases, you lose the balance.
 
More female politicians, businesspeople, military commanders etc. than presently-but I honestly don't think it would have a massive impact on the development of human history.
 
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