How has women’s status changed over the past 5000 years?
Harnessing & machine learning, & Sinn have chronicled the patriarchy.
Exception for Ancient Egypt, our societies were male dominated for millennia
This work is phenomenal
voxeu.org/article/origin
Conversation
This is the most brilliantly clever and revolutionary research I’ve read all year. I am in awe.
In patriarchal societies, women only gained status through kinship and nepotism - that’s true of Medieval Muslims & Indian politics today.
Only recently do we see “self-made” women.
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Women were locked out of universities, but with growing literacy & purchasing power they organised their own salons & societies.
Female writing skyrocketed!
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How has women’s share of “self-made” elites changed over the past 100 years?
Today, it’s highest amongst the Nordics (not the USA).
China was historically patrilineal and patrilocal: women were members of male lineages. But look how it’s jumped up.
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So yes there were queens historically, but only through nepotism and kinship.
Across the world, ordinary women were oppressed and could not independently rise up, until the past couple of centuries.
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They even disaggregate progress by occupation!
The Protestant Reformation catalysed female writing in Europe, but it was many centuries later till women thrived in business & politics.
I repeat, this research is revolutionary.
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If you’re curious about these themes, try my recent podcast:
“Ten Thousand Years of Patriarchy”.
This explains why women have only thrived in business Avery recently, and why Europe pioneered female writing.
iTunes: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/roc
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0w2PaG
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Icymi: here’s my thread on the most gender equal ancient civilisation: Egypt.
Quote Tweet
How come Ancient Egypt was relatively gender equal? Compared to Athens, Rome or Uruk?
With equality in court, women could act as witnesses, initiate divorce & keep their assets, & were worshipped as goddesses.
What was different & why did Egypt later become more patriarchal?
Show this thread
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Apologies for the typo in the original tweet 😖
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Their Big Dataset (wikipedia and Wikidata) plus Machine Learning opens up ginormous possibilities, far beyond gender.
It includes biographies of over seven million people, since 3000 BC, across the whole world
One could study anything in human history!
humanrecord.org
Replying to
Using & machine learning, we could investigate if women’s share of the (self-made) elite
1) Fell after the Arab conquests/ Sunni Revival?
2) Declined with colonialism?
3) Was higher in Catholic Spain than Catholic Italy?
4) Was higher in the Maghreb than other MENA?
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Replying to
What is the Y-axis in that figure? Share of population?
(It doesn't say on the page and that figure is not in the linked papers.)
Replying to
Fascinating! I love it that it uses "AI and crow-sourced digital sources". (pls don't edit that - it made me smile for the right reasons)
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