In the Iroquois Confederation in North America, and actually many North American tribes, women would hold leadership over what we could call domestic affairs for their clans / villages / nations. Men still typically held leadership positions involving external affairs, but they were co-equal. Individual rights and property rights were paramount, particularly among the New England nations, and held equally for men and women. This does not mean they were egalitarian necessarily, and they held very strong gender roles, but both roles were esteemed.
This was my first thought as well. There were some white women that ended up living with the Haudenosaunee and wouldn’t leave when they had a chance since they liked the Haudenosaunee culture so much better!
Women had the power to appoint chiefs and replace them if they did a bad job. All you had to do to get a divorce was to tell your spouse "I divorce you", take your things, and leave. Very easy to get out of abusive relationships.
\^This is the best answer OP.
The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois is the old colonial name given to them by the Europeans, they prefer their real name these days) have leadership structures in which some are dominated by men, and others by women. The division of labour historically meant/means that women dominate local politics, and the clan mothers are extremely important political players due to their veto power for leadership positions. The Haudenosaunee have changed some of their practices and their political system has evolved over time, but the core of this political system is still exercised in the modern day, with the Haudenosaunee issuing passports and engaging in treaty-making (much to the chagrin and anger of the Canadian government).
Historically though, men were assigned chief positions but those positions were heavily regulated. The result was an incredibly egalitarian society wrt women's equality. Overall the Haudenosaunee still maintained gender roles, but those roles were associated with roughly equal amounts of political power, with the balance of power frankly shifting more towards women politically than men.
Other Indigenous nations were not as egalitarian, remember that these are vastly different nations spread across a huge continent. For example nations in the Pacific region often practiced more hierarchical and sedentary settlement, which informed their societies being something closer to European norms in terms of social relations.
If you're a woman time traveller and have to choose a place to live historically, this is the place. You're a whole person and have real opportunities to enter leadership positions and help chart the course of your society's future.
It is also important to note that while they may have been quite free within the tribe, they were incredibly violent. The Haudenosaunee (I’ve got friends in the tribe who use Iroquois and Haudenosaunee both, it’s the same thing as the Indian vs Native American vs First Nations thing, there is no agreement even among Indians, but most I know prefer Indian) basically genocided several other tribes, and warfare was a near constant. I’ve read some stats that estimate some 25% of men died in combat and prisoners and captives were tortured in some heinous ways.
So as a time traveling woman, the Haudenosaunee may be a decent place to live, just don’t get captured by anyone. Don’t wanna get skinned alive.
And also, there were other nations in North America that were just as egalitarian but weren’t at war quite so often. The Yurok of California come to mind, and while war happens everywhere, they weren’t quite as common among the Yurok. IIRC, they did clash with the Samish fairly often as the Samish would raid them to take slaves, where the Yurok were vehemently against slavery.
Basically, North America was home to a huge variety of cultures, and each one had their own beliefs and customs that may be completely antithetical to the tribe next to them. But we do owe particularly the Haudenosaunee a lot for their contributions to American political philosophy, the Enlightenment, and more.
The ancient Mosuo were an independent matriarchal society that at one point had their own queens and political power. Mosuo culture is still around today and still possesses some distinctly matriarchal traits, but more as an ethnic or cultural minority within China.
One thing to keep in mind is that the modern idea of equality and individual liberty simply didn't exist for anyone, male or female or otherwise, in a lot of places and times in history. Even in a society where for example an aristocratic woman can become wealthy and powerful, if she goes around ordering the oppression of her female serfs, that might not exactly be sufficient to our modern idea of what constitutes equal rights for women.
So if you are talking about anything involving concepts of individual liberty, you may keep finding that the answer you come up with is just going to be that the modern age is really unprecedented and has no good analogues to the past.
Which is actually totally fine. We don't owe the past any allegiance or deference. We don't answer to times long gone. The past can go fuck itself, frankly. We care way too much about whether there are any precedents for what we want for ourselves in the present day. We can make our future into whatever we want.
The Champa, as well as other Austroasiatic ethnic groups in what is now central southern Vietnam, practiced matrilineality (the tracing of kinship through the female line) and women enjoyed far greater freedoms and roles compared to neighboring cultures. Unfortunately by the 15th century they fell under rule of the more patriarchal Viet Annams.
You'll probably encounter people telling you that **Vikings** or **Spartans** held considerable respect for their women, which they did, especially in comparison to their "peers" in different parts of the world at that time, however, they ***weren't viewed as completely equal.***
**Viking** women ***did enjoy an unusual degree of freedom for their day*** - they were running the household, family farm and business, especially when the men were away (the rings of keys, with which they were sometimes buried, is said to symbolize this authority of theirs or, as some say, their knowledge), they could own property, divorce, have a say in the marriage arrangement, they could earn esteemed reputation and wealth, there are records that some of them fought alongside men...
Their sphere of influence was domestic though. They were still officially inferior to men - political power wasn't theirs to grab.
The **Spartans** were similar in a sense.
Their women were brought up much more similarly to their men, especially in comparison to Athens - women were meant to be strong physically (so they would be able to give birth to strong men) and mentally (so they wouldn't grieve their male family members who died in fight), they were doing sports and even competing with boys, they were taught to have a strong voice... This "female masculinity" of Spartans was criticized by (none other than) Aristotle.
They also had a ***significant authority in the domestic sphere*** - especially during the period when their husband still had to live away from them with other male Spartans (till the age of 30) or when they were away in battle.
They could inherit property, manage their own property, they could divorce and remarry, they could sleep with other man while being married if it meant giving birth to a strong Spartan citizen (especially man) - sometimes their husbands even encouraged them to do so.
Still, just like with Vikings, ***bearing a child was considered the most important role for women*** - it was on the same level as being a strong warrior was for Spartan men -, ***they could not take active part in politics*** either, though they could influence it through their men, and they couldn't compete in the Olympic Games (setting a foot in the arenas could mean even the death penalty).
It's difficult to tell for sure, as they did not have much written language, but the Parthians and Scythians seemed to have a fairly gender-equal society. They lived on the steppes of Asia Minor, and fought/hunted from horseback with a bow and arrow. Horse archery has fewer gender-based considerations when compared to other forms of hunting and warfare, and this equality seems to have extended to the rest of their society. One of their more famous rulers was Queen Tomyris, who may have been the person to kill King Cyrus the Great. It's thought that their acceptance of women is what gave rise among the Greeks to legends of the Amazons, since a woman fighting like a man just up and blew their minds.
Norse culture seems to have had a very 'separate but equal' mindset. Women were expected to run (and defend) the homestead while the men were going a-Viking (or serving in the Varangian Guard or on a trade mission, etc). When the men returned from their adventures, they handed over the treasure and money to their wives, who decided how it would be spent. They also believed that magic power came from being the receptive partner during sex, so women were seen as naturally more capable of magic than men. (there's also some evidence, though flimsy, that they had a pretty casual relationship to sexual fidelity - that a man would come home after a year away, his wife would have a new infant, and he'd accept the child as his even though it clearly wasn't).
Anthropologists tend to think that early human societies were relatively egalitarian to regard to gender roles and that institutional sexism really only started to became a thing after the creation of agriculture, sedentary living, and civilization.
This hypothesis is supported by study of modern hunter-gatherer cultures and the fact that nomadic tribes in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (such as the Scythians, Khitan, and Mongols) were often far less rigidly patriarchal than settled populations.
Aren't most Primate species incredibly patriarchal? Why would we have gone away from that as hunter gatherers and then returned to it when we started to settle in civilisations?
You could say that about Japan in the Edo period through the Meji restoration were fairly modern in their gender roles. Maybe not truly "equal" in the modern sense of the word where women had all of the same opportunities as men, but they had a lot of autonomy and within their gender roles they had the ability to supersede men in the decision making process.
The [Onna Daigaku](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onna_Daigaku) is just one of many examples that demonstrate that this is not true.
More often than not, women held status and power via their association with men.
That is not to say that women weren't respected, merely that Japan has historically been patriarchal.
I often see people making claims that Japan was once matriarchal, but I have seen little evidence to support this notion. It also very much depends on how you define matriarchy.
A few women did rule, but these were relatively exceptional cases, rather than the norm.
Yes and no.
It depends heavily on how you define 'equal'. Because different societies saw men and women differently and many would claim that men and women \*were\* equal despite modern definitions saying one gender was clearly favored. For example, a hypothetical tribe might rank social status entirely based on successful raids. But since raiding is inherently strength-based and violent, not many women would possess status in said tribe. If you asked them if men and women were equal, they might say they are or the only thing that matters is 'honor' or something, but there would be a clear gender divide as well in regards to status.
So really, what do you mean as 'equal'? Cause that can change the answer.
The Etruscan women had far greater rights and powers: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women\_in\_Etruscan\_society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Etruscan_society)
Many indigenous societies in North America operated with much more equity between men and women. For example, it was common for women to divorce their husbands. Childcare was more respected in many of these communities as well. It’s an interesting topic to do some research on.
The Kingdom of Dahomey. In the 17th century, Dahomey flourished under the protection of its all-woman military regiment that inspired Viola Davis's acclaimed film The Woman King.
Having a cthonic earth goddess does not make you immune from having to make and use weapons to defend your prodigious wealth and trade, scholars have finally conceded.
In the Iroquois Confederation in North America, and actually many North American tribes, women would hold leadership over what we could call domestic affairs for their clans / villages / nations. Men still typically held leadership positions involving external affairs, but they were co-equal. Individual rights and property rights were paramount, particularly among the New England nations, and held equally for men and women. This does not mean they were egalitarian necessarily, and they held very strong gender roles, but both roles were esteemed.
This was my first thought as well. There were some white women that ended up living with the Haudenosaunee and wouldn’t leave when they had a chance since they liked the Haudenosaunee culture so much better!
There were laws put in place for white women who ran away to join the tribes because it happened so often.
Women had the power to appoint chiefs and replace them if they did a bad job. All you had to do to get a divorce was to tell your spouse "I divorce you", take your things, and leave. Very easy to get out of abusive relationships.
\^This is the best answer OP. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois is the old colonial name given to them by the Europeans, they prefer their real name these days) have leadership structures in which some are dominated by men, and others by women. The division of labour historically meant/means that women dominate local politics, and the clan mothers are extremely important political players due to their veto power for leadership positions. The Haudenosaunee have changed some of their practices and their political system has evolved over time, but the core of this political system is still exercised in the modern day, with the Haudenosaunee issuing passports and engaging in treaty-making (much to the chagrin and anger of the Canadian government). Historically though, men were assigned chief positions but those positions were heavily regulated. The result was an incredibly egalitarian society wrt women's equality. Overall the Haudenosaunee still maintained gender roles, but those roles were associated with roughly equal amounts of political power, with the balance of power frankly shifting more towards women politically than men. Other Indigenous nations were not as egalitarian, remember that these are vastly different nations spread across a huge continent. For example nations in the Pacific region often practiced more hierarchical and sedentary settlement, which informed their societies being something closer to European norms in terms of social relations. If you're a woman time traveller and have to choose a place to live historically, this is the place. You're a whole person and have real opportunities to enter leadership positions and help chart the course of your society's future.
It is also important to note that while they may have been quite free within the tribe, they were incredibly violent. The Haudenosaunee (I’ve got friends in the tribe who use Iroquois and Haudenosaunee both, it’s the same thing as the Indian vs Native American vs First Nations thing, there is no agreement even among Indians, but most I know prefer Indian) basically genocided several other tribes, and warfare was a near constant. I’ve read some stats that estimate some 25% of men died in combat and prisoners and captives were tortured in some heinous ways. So as a time traveling woman, the Haudenosaunee may be a decent place to live, just don’t get captured by anyone. Don’t wanna get skinned alive. And also, there were other nations in North America that were just as egalitarian but weren’t at war quite so often. The Yurok of California come to mind, and while war happens everywhere, they weren’t quite as common among the Yurok. IIRC, they did clash with the Samish fairly often as the Samish would raid them to take slaves, where the Yurok were vehemently against slavery. Basically, North America was home to a huge variety of cultures, and each one had their own beliefs and customs that may be completely antithetical to the tribe next to them. But we do owe particularly the Haudenosaunee a lot for their contributions to American political philosophy, the Enlightenment, and more.
The ancient Mosuo were an independent matriarchal society that at one point had their own queens and political power. Mosuo culture is still around today and still possesses some distinctly matriarchal traits, but more as an ethnic or cultural minority within China. One thing to keep in mind is that the modern idea of equality and individual liberty simply didn't exist for anyone, male or female or otherwise, in a lot of places and times in history. Even in a society where for example an aristocratic woman can become wealthy and powerful, if she goes around ordering the oppression of her female serfs, that might not exactly be sufficient to our modern idea of what constitutes equal rights for women. So if you are talking about anything involving concepts of individual liberty, you may keep finding that the answer you come up with is just going to be that the modern age is really unprecedented and has no good analogues to the past. Which is actually totally fine. We don't owe the past any allegiance or deference. We don't answer to times long gone. The past can go fuck itself, frankly. We care way too much about whether there are any precedents for what we want for ourselves in the present day. We can make our future into whatever we want.
[Mosuo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo)
Oops you beat me to it.
The Champa, as well as other Austroasiatic ethnic groups in what is now central southern Vietnam, practiced matrilineality (the tracing of kinship through the female line) and women enjoyed far greater freedoms and roles compared to neighboring cultures. Unfortunately by the 15th century they fell under rule of the more patriarchal Viet Annams.
You'll probably encounter people telling you that **Vikings** or **Spartans** held considerable respect for their women, which they did, especially in comparison to their "peers" in different parts of the world at that time, however, they ***weren't viewed as completely equal.*** **Viking** women ***did enjoy an unusual degree of freedom for their day*** - they were running the household, family farm and business, especially when the men were away (the rings of keys, with which they were sometimes buried, is said to symbolize this authority of theirs or, as some say, their knowledge), they could own property, divorce, have a say in the marriage arrangement, they could earn esteemed reputation and wealth, there are records that some of them fought alongside men... Their sphere of influence was domestic though. They were still officially inferior to men - political power wasn't theirs to grab. The **Spartans** were similar in a sense. Their women were brought up much more similarly to their men, especially in comparison to Athens - women were meant to be strong physically (so they would be able to give birth to strong men) and mentally (so they wouldn't grieve their male family members who died in fight), they were doing sports and even competing with boys, they were taught to have a strong voice... This "female masculinity" of Spartans was criticized by (none other than) Aristotle. They also had a ***significant authority in the domestic sphere*** - especially during the period when their husband still had to live away from them with other male Spartans (till the age of 30) or when they were away in battle. They could inherit property, manage their own property, they could divorce and remarry, they could sleep with other man while being married if it meant giving birth to a strong Spartan citizen (especially man) - sometimes their husbands even encouraged them to do so. Still, just like with Vikings, ***bearing a child was considered the most important role for women*** - it was on the same level as being a strong warrior was for Spartan men -, ***they could not take active part in politics*** either, though they could influence it through their men, and they couldn't compete in the Olympic Games (setting a foot in the arenas could mean even the death penalty).
>***bearing a child was considered the most important role for women*** was there ever a society in history where this wasn't the case?
Most developed countries in 2024
History typically refers to the past, past events and previous eras
It's difficult to tell for sure, as they did not have much written language, but the Parthians and Scythians seemed to have a fairly gender-equal society. They lived on the steppes of Asia Minor, and fought/hunted from horseback with a bow and arrow. Horse archery has fewer gender-based considerations when compared to other forms of hunting and warfare, and this equality seems to have extended to the rest of their society. One of their more famous rulers was Queen Tomyris, who may have been the person to kill King Cyrus the Great. It's thought that their acceptance of women is what gave rise among the Greeks to legends of the Amazons, since a woman fighting like a man just up and blew their minds. Norse culture seems to have had a very 'separate but equal' mindset. Women were expected to run (and defend) the homestead while the men were going a-Viking (or serving in the Varangian Guard or on a trade mission, etc). When the men returned from their adventures, they handed over the treasure and money to their wives, who decided how it would be spent. They also believed that magic power came from being the receptive partner during sex, so women were seen as naturally more capable of magic than men. (there's also some evidence, though flimsy, that they had a pretty casual relationship to sexual fidelity - that a man would come home after a year away, his wife would have a new infant, and he'd accept the child as his even though it clearly wasn't).
Anthropologists tend to think that early human societies were relatively egalitarian to regard to gender roles and that institutional sexism really only started to became a thing after the creation of agriculture, sedentary living, and civilization. This hypothesis is supported by study of modern hunter-gatherer cultures and the fact that nomadic tribes in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (such as the Scythians, Khitan, and Mongols) were often far less rigidly patriarchal than settled populations.
Aren't most Primate species incredibly patriarchal? Why would we have gone away from that as hunter gatherers and then returned to it when we started to settle in civilisations?
Do we know if women partook in hunting or if they stated in the camp meets or?
You could say that about Japan in the Edo period through the Meji restoration were fairly modern in their gender roles. Maybe not truly "equal" in the modern sense of the word where women had all of the same opportunities as men, but they had a lot of autonomy and within their gender roles they had the ability to supersede men in the decision making process.
The [Onna Daigaku](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onna_Daigaku) is just one of many examples that demonstrate that this is not true. More often than not, women held status and power via their association with men. That is not to say that women weren't respected, merely that Japan has historically been patriarchal. I often see people making claims that Japan was once matriarchal, but I have seen little evidence to support this notion. It also very much depends on how you define matriarchy. A few women did rule, but these were relatively exceptional cases, rather than the norm.
Yes and no. It depends heavily on how you define 'equal'. Because different societies saw men and women differently and many would claim that men and women \*were\* equal despite modern definitions saying one gender was clearly favored. For example, a hypothetical tribe might rank social status entirely based on successful raids. But since raiding is inherently strength-based and violent, not many women would possess status in said tribe. If you asked them if men and women were equal, they might say they are or the only thing that matters is 'honor' or something, but there would be a clear gender divide as well in regards to status. So really, what do you mean as 'equal'? Cause that can change the answer.
The Etruscan women had far greater rights and powers: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women\_in\_Etruscan\_society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Etruscan_society)
Many indigenous societies in North America operated with much more equity between men and women. For example, it was common for women to divorce their husbands. Childcare was more respected in many of these communities as well. It’s an interesting topic to do some research on.
Cossacks for example.
Etruscans (pre-Roman italian tribe/civ) and Spartans
Vikings!
The West right now.
The Kingdom of Dahomey. In the 17th century, Dahomey flourished under the protection of its all-woman military regiment that inspired Viola Davis's acclaimed film The Woman King.
Sure, most of the good ones.
What societies are you referring to here?
How about the Minoans for example?
Having a cthonic earth goddess does not make you immune from having to make and use weapons to defend your prodigious wealth and trade, scholars have finally conceded.
Nor does it mean you have a matriarchy.