Introduction:
At first glance, today’s woman and the woman who lived over 12,000 years ago might seem like total opposites. One lives in a world of smartphones and social media, the other in one of stone tools and survival. But the truth is, they actually have a surprising amount in common. From helping provide for their communities to having more say over their own bodies and how many kids they want, the connection is real. This piece breaks down those similarities and why they matter today.
Hunter-Gatherer Equality:
Before agriculture, our ancestors lived in small, mobile bands. Picture a small family waking at dawn in a shaded grove. The men may set off to track wild game, but the women and children gather wild berries, dig for tubers, and collect water. They move together as a unit, laughing, teaching, and sharing. The children learn by doing, not in classrooms but through constant engagement with nature. No one owns land or stockpiles wealth—what matters is contribution and connection. Each day is a communal effort to survive, and thrive, in rhythm with the land. In these societies, survival depended on shared labor. Men typically hunted, but women gathered plants, nuts, and roots—providing up to 80% of the community’s daily calories. Both roles were essential. Women had autonomy, influence, and often controlled communal resources. Social status was fluid, and decision-making was collective.
Natural Checks on Fertility:
Hunter-gatherers also had natural birth control. Extended breastfeeding, low body fat, and intense physical activity limited frequent pregnancies. Additionally, many early societies granted women sexual autonomy. Some believed in “partible paternity”—that multiple men could father a child—eliminating the rigid paternity concerns that later fueled patriarchal control.
Sexual Dimorphism and Evolutionary Roles:
The physical differences between men and women—greater average muscle mass in men, higher fat retention and endurance in women—did not evolve to establish dominance or hierarchy. Rather, they reflect complementary survival roles. Male strength was suited for short bursts of high-intensity activity like hunting or defense, while female endurance supported reproductive health, caregiving, and communal stability. Nature’s design was not for individual supremacy, but for collective adaptability. Evolutionary biology suggests these differences supported mutual dependence, not one-sided provision.
The Evolutionary Mismatch: Attraction and Dominance:
Modern attraction dynamics sometimes reflect this evolutionary wiring. Traits like risk-taking, assertiveness, and physical dominance—once linked to protection and resource access—can still trigger attraction today, even when those traits are detached from emotional stability or long-term partnership value. This partly explains why certain women are drawn to so-called “bad boys”—not out of irrationality, but because these traits mimic evolutionary signals of strength. However, in modern society, these traits are often a mismatch for healthy, cooperative relationships. Emotional presence, empathy, and relational security are becoming more desirable as survival no longer depends on raw dominance.
Agricultural Revolution and Gender Stratification:
With the advent of agriculture around 10,000 BCE, everything changed. Like a tree that once grew wild and free, society began to plant itself in rows, boxed in by property lines and inheritance laws. Where once food was gathered communally, now land was owned and worked—often by force. As the plow replaced the foraging basket, gender roles began to ossify. A Sumerian proverb from that era sums it up starkly: “The man is the owner of the field; the woman tends the house.” Surpluses led to land ownership, and labor shifted towards physically intensive plowing—tasks largely performed by men. Property, inheritance, and family lineage became paramount, leading to strict controls on women’s sexuality. Patriarchy hardened. Religion, law, and tradition increasingly excluded women from power, education, and autonomy.
Agriculture: The Original Capitalism:
The agricultural revolution did not just introduce farming—it birthed a new social order rooted in control. For the first time in history, humans began producing surplus, accumulating private property, and passing it down through male bloodlines. This required not only control over land, but also control over women’s reproductive capacity.
As feminist historian Silvia Federici explains, the body—especially the female body—became the first site of labor discipline. Before factories and markets, there were fields and wombs. Patriarchy, in this context, functioned as a system to secure ownership, inheritance, and labor power. It was the ideological and structural prototype of capitalism.
Capitalism didn’t invent patriarchy—it inherited, scaled, and refined it. Through unpaid domestic labor, reproductive exploitation, and the legal codification of marriage, capitalism absorbed ancient systems of domination and gave them economic purpose. The shift from communal survival to property-based production was not just a technical change—it was the moment capitalism’s moral logic took root.
Industrial and Post-Industrial Shifts:
Fast-forward to the 18th and 19th centuries: industrialization uprooted families from their ancestral rhythms. Imagine a coal-dusted tenement in Manchester, England, or a cramped tenement yard in Willemstad—where fathers left before dawn for grueling shifts in factories or docks, while mothers stitched, scrubbed, and rationed food. Children grew up fast, often joining the labor force themselves. The home, once a center of shared production, became a site of domestic survival.
Men were cast as breadwinners; women, as homemakers. The 20th century began to challenge these roles, and the 21st century is rapidly dismantling them. Today, digital economies favor flexibility and creativity over physical strength. Emotional intelligence, collaboration, and caregiving—traits undervalued for centuries—are rising in social and economic value.
The Modern Return to Balance:
We are not regressing, but rediscovering—like a pendulum swinging back toward center, or a spiral circling inward to a more ancient wisdom. In our search for progress, we find echoes of an old truth: balance is not new, it’s remembered. In today’s era:
- Parenting roles are increasingly shared.
- Women are reclaiming economic and reproductive autonomy.
- Men are breaking free from emotional suppression and re-entering care professions.
- Community-centered living, flexible work, and non-binary identity expressions mirror ancient egalitarian patterns.
Conclusion:
This generation stands at a turning point. The old molds are breaking, and in the chaos, a new vision is forming—not of rigid gender codes, but of fluid, cooperative humanity, much like the one we came from. Perhaps the future is not forward or backward, but a spiral that returns us to wholeness.
Call to Action:
Let us honor where we came from, learn from what we became, and be intentional about who we want to be. The past offers wisdom not to repeat, but to remember the possibilities we once lived. Now, we get to choose again.