Jessica Wynn

Yeah.

So the temptation, of course, is to fill that uncertainty with a story that feels good, a golden age, a lost harmony.

But we don't need that story.

The case for a more balanced society with gender equality doesn't depend on whether women were in charge 10,000 years ago.

It stands on its own.

Absolutely.

I mean, instead of looking at myths and archaeological guesswork, we can look at living societies.

Yeah.

Places that exist right now that have been directly studied by anthropologists who can actually go there, ask questions and measure outcomes.

So there's a lot of variation.

Matrilineal systems, matrifocal systems, and hybrid structures, which don't fit neatly into any category, they all exist.

And one of the most comprehensive attempts to study this globally comes from the work of a German scholar.

Her name is Heidi Gottner-Abandroff.

She spent decades documenting what she calls matriarchal societies across Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

And this is based on field research, not myth or speculation.

And her work focuses on living cultures.

None of this prehistoric guesswork.

Yeah, well, she's pushing back on the idea that we should throw the whole concept out.

But here's where it gets complicated.

Her definition of matriarchy is very different from what most people have in mind.