"Unpacking myths around the way gendered oppression has been examined, this presents a powerfully refreshing global history of patriarchy."
With an anthropological eye, Angela Saini’s The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule is an eye-opening triumph. Blending scholarly rigour with writerly flair, it’s an essential read for anyone interested in big history, human nature, equality and freedom.
In her introduction, Saini states that, “People have long struggled to understand the patriarchy” i.e. the question of how men came to have power has not been answered. This is, in part, as the author argues, because gendered oppression is often regarded differently from other forms of oppression, such as class oppression. All too often arguments revert to essentialism; many still posit the view that patriarchy is somehow inevitable. For context, the author provides examples of matriliny, and exposes the bias inherent in the “matrilineal puzzle”, as it’s known in academic circles i.e. academics seek to explain why matriliny arose in certain societies, while patriliny “is seen to need no explanation at all. It just is.”
In this clearly unsatisfactory situation, The Patriarchs unpacks the history of patriarchy, tracing it back to its prehistoric roots to reveal how male power took pervasive hold in certain societies through time, and across the globe. And all this is underpinned by a call to rethink our institutions, and abandon the idea that the “social patterns we follow must be natural or divine, rather than manmade”. Mighty in scope and delivery, this is a tremendous, transformative work.
| Primary Genre | History |
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