What is the Patriarchy?

First, what is the patriarchy? The patriarchy is not men; it’s a social system. Allan G. Johnson, a sociologist and author of The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal Legacy argues that patriarchy is a kind of system or structure. Patriarchy is social hierarchy under a single leader, usually the father or eldest male, and descent is traced through the male line. By contrast, feminism advocates for an

alternative system that is flatter without such a strict emphasis on hierarchy, rank, and dominance. Feminism, in its various forms, has argued that the law should not distinguish between men and women, and barriers to women’s full participation in school, at work, and in positions of political power should be removed.

As women were barred from institutions of higher education in early and mid-modern history, most early scholarship on the early origins of human societies was produced by men. This included early fields of history, anthropology, and psychology, and men in all fields made arguments to explain the natural, or biological reasons men should women in society. They claimed that early societies used to be matriarchal, controlled by women, and the disappearance of these societies was than evidence of their flawed female foundations. Scholars used evidence from literature and legends like the mythical Amazons, formidable female warriors residing on the fringes of the known world, the legendary adversaries of powerful Greek heroes. Similar tales of warrior women appear in Ancient Chinese texts. Ancient accounts feature renowned heroes. These stories, depicting male heroes triumphing over all-female societies, have been cited as evidence supporting the idea that male dominance is a natural progression in societal evolution, but the idea that the past was matriarchal is flawed at best.

Amazons fighting the Greeks in the Trojan War, Achilles and Penthesilea in the center[1]

The myth ignores historical and archaeological evidence and makes unfair assumptions about women and are instead rooted in male bias. The idea of a matriarchal prehistory is presented as a "proven fact" and the "most scientifically plausible account," but these claims are untrue. Primary historical evidence, in some cases, and a lack of evidence in others, disproves these long-held assumptions about early societies and women’s roles.  The stereotypes of the matriarchal myth work to make all women seem the same, exaggerate differences between women and men, and limit women to a symbolic, timeless, and archetypal identity.

History of the Patriarchy

Defining patriarchy is much easier than determining when and why it first began. A lot can be learned from our evolution on this. 4-8 million years ago, the evolutionary path splits, developing into the Homo and Pan geneses. Our closest primate relatives, the Chimpanzee, has several offshoots. Most proponents of patriarchy point to the Pan Troglodytes to argue that patriarchy is inherent in humanity. The Pan Troglodytes are aggressive, live in male dominated clans, infanticide is common, there are border patrols to defend territory, and use coercion to get female mates. Annoyingly, these same people ignore that another offshoot of the Chimpanzee is the Bonobo Pygmy Chimp, called the Pan Paniscus, which is the opposite in terms of gender dynamics. Both species are about the same size, the males are larger than the females to the same proportion, and yet this does not produce male-supremacy. The Pan Paniscus are not aggressive, females are dominant in society, and males do not coerce females. This evolutionary view shows us that culture, not biology dictates our societal power structures.

A common explanation, such as that offered in a 2022 article by evolutionary anthropologist Ruth Mace, is that when Homo sapiens first emerged around 300,000 years ago, they lived in small nomadic groups of hunters and gatherers, with some gender division of labor but relatively little inequality and power differences between men and women. Then, when humans first began farming about 10,000 years ago, they settled down and started to live in much larger settlements where inequality in terms of wealth and gender relations first emerged. Men came to control access to land, domestic animals like cattle, or crops like wheat, and through this eventually gained political power, first in terms of controlling inheritance, marriages, and children, and later in formal authority roles. In this view, patriarchy is not inevitable, but rather a byproduct of living in complex societies.[2]

Egyptian artisan Sennedjem and his wife Ti harvesting wheat[3]

In The Death of Nature (1980), Caroline Merchant questioned the traditional view of human progress often presented in history classrooms. Instead of assuming that periods of progress benefited everyone, Merchant asked, “progress for whom?” She argued that these developments, while promoting economic and scientific growth, also reinforced systems of social repression. Merchant examined how natural resources and human activity interacted over time, showing that nature and culture were inseparably linked. Merchant began by tracing a long-standing intellectual tradition, originating in ancient Greece, that identified nature with feminine characteristics. This tradition cast both women and the natural world in a dual light: as nurturing, life-giving forces and as dangerous, chaotic entities capable of destruction. The earth was imagined as a “nurturing mother,” sustaining humanity, just as women maintained households and social stability. Yet, both were also portrayed as unpredictable. In extreme cases, women were depicted as witches, symbols of nature’s untamed power. For those seeking to impose order, both women and nature became subjects to be subdued and mastered.

Austrian-born historian Gerda Lerner published The Creation of Patriarchy (1986), a groundbreaking study that reexamined the roots of Western civilization through archaeological, sociological, and historical evidence. She argued that as societies developed, women’s status declined—a process reflected in early tribal economies, religious traditions, and legal systems that gradually established male dominance. By rereading traditional histories with attention to women’s presence, Lerner concluded that patriarchy was not a natural or inevitable condition but a deliberate social construct, created and reinforced through institutions such as law, religion, and family. Her method of “asking new questions of old evidence” transformed the study of history by highlighting women’s central yet often overlooked roles in the development of civilization.

Lerner further contended that patriarchy’s influence extended beyond gender to shape other forms of oppression, including slavery. She argued that the subjugation of women predated and enabled the institution of slavery, revealing how deeply systems of dominance were intertwined in human history. By focusing on the neglected figure of the female slave, she demonstrated how exclusion and inequality were foundational to civilization itself. Lerner’s interdisciplinary approach became a model for women’s historians, encouraging them to bridge disciplines and challenge inherited narratives. Her work continues to resonate as a reminder that systems of oppression—whether ancient or modern—are historical constructs that can, through critical inquiry and collective effort, be dismantled.

Other people see the common explanation for the origins of patriarchy as a little too simplistic. Archaeologist David Wengrow and anthropologist David Graeber published The Dawn of Everything in 2021, which presents lots of new research showing that even after humans started farming 10,000 years ago, there was a time lag of about 4000 years before there is clear evidence of wealth inequality and patriarchal political formations.[4] Humans throughout history and in different areas of the world have been remarkably inventive in creating different political and legal systems, some of which women were much more likely to hold positions of power and share in decision making and rule enforcement. In this view, patriarchy is not inevitable, even after humans start living in complex societies.

So, if patriarchy is not inevitable, why is it still so common? People sometimes assume there are biological differences between men and women, such as our brain structures or our hormone levels, that make men naturally more inclined to lead. Or perhaps men hold political power because of some evolutionary heritage, where women were tied down by childbirth and raising children and men were free to wield power and influence. Agustín Fuentes, in a 2022 book, reviews all the evidence and shows that biological differences between men and women are small and not necessarily associated with qualities that have much to do with politics. As he says in a 2022 article:

“The belief that men are by nature aggressive and belligerent but protectors—like the Roman god of war, Mars—and women are emotive, beautiful, vain, and fertile—like the goddess of love, Venus—is common. Such a belief is often rooted in stories about human evolution and offered as an explanation of why men and women have different jobs, different capacities, and different participation in politics and industry. This is a dangerous myth.”[5]

Other cultures also illuminate the limits to the argument that patriarchy is natural. There are many cultures around the world that are matrilineal, where descent and inheritance are traced through women. Others are matrilocal, where the groom moves in with the wife’s family after marriage, or matrifocal, where women head households. These cultures existed all throughout history and in parts of the world today, in stark contrast to the patriarchy as natural argument.

In the end, scholars from a wide range of disciplines have shown that cultural and social factors, instead of biological ones, are the best explanation for why patriarchy is so common in our contemporary political systems. In cultures where patriarchy has developed, humans come to see men as “natural” leaders and politicians, and it is very hard for people to escape that worldview, perpetuating this style of government.

Power Gaps from Access not Physiology

The purpose of governments has been debated throughout history. Most agree that their role should be to make and enforce laws, protect citizens, and provide for the common good. The earliest philosophers had great ideas about government, but cruel ideas about women. It’s funny to see the mental gymnastics these men did to explain their philosophies about humanity and then deny women that humanity. From Plato to Confucius, their views influenced Eastern and Western thinking for millennia. Religious leaders held similar beliefs but justified them with religious ideology that condemned women for sins they never committed. Interestingly, many religious prophets and founders promoted social and religious power structures that advanced women’s humanity. Sadly, most religions morph over time in favor of religious fundamentalism that mirrors the patriarchy found in the broader culture. In fact, where religions went mainstream, leaders had new weapons to use to justify women’s oppression. The same mental gymnastics appeared. Religious leaders differentiated spiritual equality from social equality. In heaven they were equal, but on earth women were subject to a master under a political structure called coverture.

Coverture was a hierarchy of legal, political, and social norms which established women, children, enslaved people, and animals as chattel: the entitled and inheritable property of men, namely the patriarchal father or husband. In coverture, women had no legal, political or social independence-- their actions dictated and “covered” by the dominant man in their household. These patriarchs maintained order in their household by moderating and monitoring the actions of women, providing “care” for them along with other members of their home. There were consequences for men failing to take care of their chattel. However, women and children had little educational, financial, or legal resources to enforce those consequences.

Coverture did not respect or protect the humanity of women and children under its “cover.” Any time a woman inherited something, whether a land title or money, the system of coverture deemed women unfit to keep it: women could only be allowed her inheritance if there were no other males in line to take it. In some instances, when women were allowed to take ownership of land titles and such outright, women challenged the confines and legitimacy of coverture, against the patriarchal norms that oppressed her. Those remarkable women still had to exist within a very delicate balance with their prescribed gender roles.

While there are many instances of female empresses and queens taking on ruling roles throughout history, it does not mean the patriarchy ceased to be at play. Indeed, many of those women in history were not allowed to exercise any ruling power in the empires in which they resided. These female figurehead positions were bestowed upon them by the patriarchal hierarchy itself; whether by birth into a royal family, or by marriage into one. Though the minority, these elite positions gave women few reasons to oppose or speak out against the patriarchal hierarchy– it benefited them.

While being aware of the female erasure present in historical materials, it is recorded that Anula of Sri Lanka was the first female monarch to rule in Asia. She ruled with intensity and brutality to preserve her reign and power. Another female, Lü Zhi, is known as the Han Dynasty’s first female Empress Consort. As Anula, she was similarly described as a vicious ruler. Zhi’s counterpart was her husband, Emperor Gaozu. He recruited military talent to advise and guide their expeditions, and she helped defend his ruling seat. After Empress Zhi and Emperor Gaozu had successfully defended the Han empire from its rivals, she assassinated two of the key generals who helped bring her husband to power, to eliminate any imposing threat of political usurpation. Lü Zhi’s work to preserve her position of power in the Han Dynasty did not stop there. Due to China’s system of concubinage - of keeping concubines- Lü Zhi had to protect her biological son’s power many times, by executing any of her husband’s other sons who rivaled his inheritance of the throne. She paid particular violence to the mothers who belonged to her husband’s harem. To one mother in particular, Lady Qi, the Empress ordered her soldiers to imprison her in a pigsty, blind fold her, then chop out her tongue and limbs.

Many historical women were not just active in exercising political power, but also in imagining political philosophy. Ban Zhao, an elite female who lived in Han China from 45 to 115 CE, was predisposed to philosophical ponderings by her access to education, in particular, the work of Confucius. She worked to integrate women into Confucian styles of thought. A product of her indoctrination into a patriarchal society, Ban Zhao’s philosophical work left a long and conflicted legacy for the rights of women in China for the next one thousand years. Her book Admonitions for Women, otherwise known as Lessons for Women, created a persuasive rationale for the equal school education of boys and girls. She scolds male scholars, telling them, “Now look at the gentlemen of the present age. They only knew that wives must be controlled, and that the husband’s rule and precedence be established… but if one only teaches men and not women, is that not ignoring the essential relation between them?” She states clearly that by promoting women’s education, one also promotes the harmony of yin and yang within each household. This philosophy prioritized women’s education only for the retention of male power; to rightly position his authority from a woman’s. This hierarchy, in which the male held power over the entire household, Han China required women to fight for her own humanity and education first, before garnering a piece of them.

Other historical women leaders, however, carried their power differently than their ‘viscous’ counterparts. Theodora, ruled during the golden age of the Byzantine Empire, with her husband Justinian I, from 527 CE until she died in 548 CE. She came to the royal court, likely as an actor, stripper, and likely a prostitute, who stole the heart of Justinian during a beauty contest. During their marriage and rule, Theodora’s non-royal background gave her perspectives on empire and power that most other emperors did not have. Leading with an unorthodox perspective, Theodora led campaigns for social reform, aided charity work for hospitals, orphanages, and the creation of homes for former prostitutes wishing to rejoin society.

Bruenhilds Ankunft in Worms Hundeshagenscher Kodex[6]

​ Unlike Theodora, not all women in power belonging to humble origins choose to pay it forward, as power is often addictive: a perpetual problem in hierarchies. During the rule of the Visigoths, Fredegund came to power as a servant turned mistress to the king. Fredegund’s affair with the king, however, was discovered by his wife, Galswintha. She had been a Visigoth princess from Spain before her marriage, and her sister Brunhild had married the king’s older brother of her home province. In 568 CE, Galswintha was discovered dead in her bed. Within one month, Theodora married the king and then killed him. Both Galswintha and Brunhild had been born and raised to be in power. Fredegund, however, was not born into royalty and had no choice but to use violence to acquire power for herself. The two queens, Theodora and Brunhild, reigned as regents and retained their own power for nearly one century. Their territories encompassed what is now France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of Switzerland, and southwestern Germany. During this period, only one man, Charlemagne, gained control of more territory than Theodora and Brunhild.

Brunhild, having been raised and trained her whole life to be a queen and operate in political spheres dominated by the power of men, became a master of strategy and politics. Working within the system of patriarchy she lived in, Brunhild secured her power through the establishment of alliances and made strategic negotiations of marriages for her daughters and granddaughters with prominent men. She led key negotiations for the first treaty of Western Europe, and became the first queen to oversee a trial in the medieval era. While many of her contemporaries disagreed with her style of ruling and powerful capacities, they nevertheless acknowledged her great skill and ability. Fredegund, on the other hand, was not lucky enough to be trained in empire through birthright, and used different strategies to acquire power. She frequently made use of enemy’s surrendered or abandoned property, to barter with local bishops for their church’s loyalty and favor. Both Brunhild and Fredegund gained and wielded power in patriarchal systems that were not designed for them. While they did quite well under their circumstances, their lived experiences and status as women in a male dominated society gave them no space or opportunity to imagine or fight for a more equal society, operating outside of patriarchy. Indeed, the system served their own, individual power and that of their lineages.

Fredegund attacking her own daughter[7]

If a system of government develops around patriarchy, the nature of that government will be to reinforce itself, and the purpose of that government will be to serve the patriarchal hierarchy. Given that young, poor, and enslaved men were considered chattel to be controlled by the patriarch, it’s important to understand that patriarchies limit the overwhelming majority of men. Ironically, the historical movements in the late medieval and early modern periods that challenged the church and the absolutism of kings and queens laid the groundwork for male democracy, and later universal democracy. The Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment questioned the very hierarchical foundation that patriarchies were built on.

The Reformation that swept Europe in 1517 exposed the weaknesses of patriarchal norms that held women’s intellectualism and thus freedom and finances hostage. The Reformation was spurred by leader, Martin Luther. While Luther did not champion women’s rights, he did question the Catholic church’s all-male clergy who required a monetary payment for salvation, and who argued that only church officiants could attest to a soul’s salvation. Martin Luther insisted that only God could grant salvation, and that the interpretation of Biblical scripture could be done by any male head of household. As he attempted to create a more equitable spiritual community among men, Luther wrote that women “are chiefly created to bear children and be the pleasure, joy, and solace of their husbands.” He wrote that given women’s broad hips and ingrained childrearing responsibilities, women “should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children.” These philosophies were based upon a doctrine that the salvation of the human soul from sin required them to be able to read the Bible and develop a personal relationship with it. As such, the education of young boys and girls was necessary to reach that divine goal. Indeed, Luther believed that “were there neither soul, heaven, nor hell, it would still be necessary to have schools here below. The world has need of educated men and women, to the end that they may govern the country properly, and that the women may properly bring up their children, care for their domestics, and direct the affairs of their households.” While it is true that Luther bound women to domesticity, he did value their education differently than his contemporaries. He acknowledged women’s education as an equal opportunity for salvation and fulfilling the will of God, and solidifying his society upon its systems of commerce, trade, and increasing urbanization. This reconceptualization would ultimately allow women better access to education in the future; their literacy as an integral pillar to raising a Western Christian family. Most of all, the rise of Lutheranism and other sects of Protestant Christianity would sow seeds of disunion among the Church, slowly dismantling its power structures, and made way for a more inclusive, though still male-dominated, democracy.

With the Church’s power questioned, more and more independent universities opened throughout Europe, spaces where men could study. As universities were separate from the church, early scientific thinking emerged that changed the trajectory of the world. In the 1980’s Carolyn Merchant, a philosopher and a historian, argued that the Scientific Revolution fundamentally altered humanity’s relationship with both nature and women, transforming them from living, interconnected systems into mechanical, controllable entities. Earlier, nature was understood as an organic whole, but emerging scientific thought reframed it as a machine that could be disassembled, studied, and reorganized to serve human, particularly male and capitalist, interests. Thinkers like Newton and Leibniz epitomized this shift, institutionalizing mechanistic science and laying the foundation for modern technological control over the natural world and women.

Merchant linked the intellectual developments of the 17th century to economic changes in England. As capitalist expansion sought to maximize profit through land reclamation and resource extraction, nature itself was redefined as a productive resource to be managed. This same logic of control extended to women, who throughout history were considered linked and limited by beliefs about their nature. While men were seen as stable, women were unstable and wild. Remember, coverture argued that men provided women with stability. As the Industrial Revolution expanded, lower class women faced surveillance and regulation through emerging “scientific” methods, while middle and upper-class women were excluded from production and relegated to passive domestic roles, dependent on male authority. Coverture’s basic idea that women’s identity should be, must be, contained within her role as daughter, wife, or mother, was maintained even as the economy and society modernized. Thus, the subjugation of women paralleled the exploitation of nature, both reshaped to fit capitalist and patriarchal systems.

Home as the Foundation of the State

In essence, in the social hierarchies of 17th century Europe and early America, the government mirrored the family structure. The belief was that the family was the foundation of the state. Yet this vision had serious limitations in dealing with the complexities of women’s status, especially as it applied to women who were not just wives or daughters but independent, property-owning individuals. This presented a contradiction that was difficult to reconcile within the dominant political and familial ideologies of the time. For example, high-status women held more sway than low-status men, since their social standing was primarily determined by their husbands' rank rather than their own gender. Thus, women were controlled by men, and poor men were controlled by everyone. This patriarchal structure only really functioned when women occupied the roles of wife or daughter.

17th century queens were all over Western Europe, highlighting the ways elite women were able to navigate around male centered norms. Queen Mary I, then Jane Gray, then Elizabeth I ruled England in succession, followed shortly by Mary II, the last of the Stuarts. To the north, Mary Queen of Scots, and across the channel Queen Regent Catherine de Medici and later her grandniece, Marie de Medici of France, ruled outright. Women ruled in Sweden, Austria, Spain, and far beyond, from Nur Jahan in India, to Nzinga in Angola.

Even if the woman wasn’t an elite or a monarch, the state mirrored family social structure had other cracks. Patriarchy became more complex when the wife in question was also mother because motherhood had long been revered in western Christian societies. According to the Fifth Commandment, "Honor Thy Father and Mother," women acting as mothers had a nearly equal standing to men, able to command respect and obedience from their children, even from adult sons.

Widows presented an even greater contradiction to the social framework, as they were more likely to own property. In common law, only unmarried women could control their possessions, with never-married women typically possessing little property, while widows could inherit a third of significant estates, the rest would go to the oldest son. This created a paradox in the legal and social understanding of women’s roles.

Political theorists of the Stuart era, such as Sir Robert Filmer, drew on the customary patriarchal model of family life to justify absolute monarchy, arguing that a king’s power was as natural and unquestionable as a father over his family. Even those who rejected Filmer’s sweeping defense of royal absolutism still believed the state mirrored the family and that political authority originated in the husband-father’s dominance over his wife, children, and dependents.

Patriarcha[8]

These ideas crossed the Atlantic with English settlers, particularly the Puritans. John Winthrop’s 1645 speech on civil liberty makes this influence unmistakable. In it, he compares a wife’s voluntary submission to her husband to a subject’s rightful obedience to magistrates, suggesting that true liberty is found not in independence but in accepting divinely sanctioned authority. Winthrop’s analogy presents marital hierarchy as a model for political order.

Filmer’s ideas defended absolute monarchy, and Winthrop used them to establish theocracy in Massachusetts, presenting a challenge for budding Enlightenment thinkers. Across towns and counties, property owning men were increasingly participating in local governance structures that operated through collective male decision-making. Collective governance was only a half-formed idea until John Locke reshaped it into a coherent political theory. He wrote Two Treatises of Government to directly respond to Filmer’s assertions. Filmer argued that all political authority came from God, who granted it to Adam as the first king. He believed that absolute power of kings descended through generations within a “paternal power” over their subjects, like a father over his household.

Locke argued that Filmer's arguments were not supported by biblical or historical evidence. Instead, Locke drew on ancient ideas and English custom to argue that society and government were created through agreements among men. Locke pointed out that even if Adam had such power, the line of succession was lost to history, making it impossible to prove any modern monarch had a legitimate claim through that lineage. Locke's work was intended to counter the idea that people were born into natural subjection. He offered a powerful alternative to the prevailing view that authority originated in patriarchal households. His theory was also politically strategic: as a supporter of the Parliamentary cause and the Glorious Revolution, Locke sought to legitimize the overthrow of absolutist Stuart rule and to defend the establishment of a new, non-monarchical government.

What Locke ultimately did was break from earlier political models that treated the family and the state as variations of the same hierarchy. This break served the goal of cracking absolutism and the idea that these institutions were ordained by God. However, as already discussed, for mothers, widows and landowners, there were already cracks in the strict hierarchy. In order to justify his political ideas, Locke filled in the cracks that had been liberating women. In the ensuing debates he created a sharp conceptual split: the public realm—politics, government, law—was imagined as an all-male space grounded in equality, while the private realm—home and family—was left as a place where hierarchy and male authority remained fully intact. Governments were by men and for men, while homes were ordered and organized by the patriarchy. If women were mothers, or widows, or landowners, they would have no power in the public world of men without male representatives.

His opponents immediately saw the contradiction: if government was founded on individual consent, how could Locke claim that husbands automatically “represented” their wives and children? Genuine consent should require that all adults—not just men—have a say in forming political society. This is where Locke reinforced the very patriarchy he seemed to challenge. To solve the problem, he doubled down on the idea that women were naturally unequal. This is the same Locke celebrated for rejecting “natural” limitations on men and championing environmental influences over inherited traits—yet he made no move to question women’s subordination. He insisted that marriage was built on a voluntary partnership between husband and wife, but then added that their “different understandings” made equality impossible. Women’s consent to be governed lay in their consent to be married. Thus, for Locke, marriage was not tyranny, but an expression of consent and representation. In classic patriarchal fashion, he argued that shared concerns required a single final decision-maker, and of course, he placed that authority squarely in the hands of the husband. So even as Locke helped dismantle absolutist monarchy, he shored up absolutist rule in the family, ensuring that the household remained a bastion of male dominance.

It's important to note a great deal of nuance in Locke’s ideas about gender. His devaluing of women is not separate from his devaluation of certain types of men. He clearly favors a version of heterosexual masculinity that was independent, rational, and fiscally responsible, while rejecting men without property and men dependent on others. Locke relentlessly attacked Filmer's version of patriarchy, what would today be called “toxic masculinity,” where the man was a conquering warrior tyrannically obsessed with power over others. Locke clearly valued a version of masculinity that was tender.

Although Locke essentially denied women a place in the public world of men and relegated them to a patriarch in their homes, Locke deeply believed in the social contract. Insofar as the patriarch fails to meet the needs of those he’s responsible for, wives have the right to break the contract. He repeatedly refers to the liberty of wives to divorce husbands who fail in their duty to provide for the good of the family. Locke’s ideal father was contentious and levelheaded. How he imagined women without equal education, financial independence, or the ability to represent themselves in court to a jury and judge of all men was not evident.

Locke’s ideas were a step forward for democracy and a step backward for many women. His failure to include women in the public world as full humans and adults was sadly representative of the men of his era.

Enlightened Women

The Enlightenment of the 18^th century saw an explosion of political thought that built on early ideas by Locke and others challenging the centuries long absolutist systems, arguing that merit rather than bloodlines should drive political leadership. Women listened to their ideas with a keen ear. Are women citizens if they have no say in their system of government or the laws they are bound to follow? How can a society of men who say they are born equal not share that with women citizens?

Especially for more wealthy women, an early education sparked the flame of liberation: of thought, action, and future. Many women fostered passion for intellectualism and political thought. These passions were not welcome in France, however. Several laws prohibited the gathering of groups who intended to discuss political thought. Women, especially aristocratic, became increasingly skilled at carving out spaces of their own: in free thinking “salons” modeled after the Ottoman Empire’s coffeehouses, which attracted customers to engage in dialogue about anything from art, religion, family, and life. The famous “la Chambre Bleue,” owned by Madame Rambouillet, opened its doors in 1618 for women to escape from the rigidity of French aristocracy. Her salon was modeled all around France by other hostesses, hoping to attract intellectuals and unfettered discussion. Finally, women acquired a front row seat in society.

These salons garnered the attention of intellectuals from around Europe, hoping to engage in fruitful discussion. Even the French king’s mistress was of attendance. The hostess Jeanne Antionnette Poisson, or Madame Pompadour, used her wealth and renown to host the 18th-century’s best speakers like Diderot and Voltaire. Madame Pompadour also left a political legacy, advocating and lobbying for the publication of a French encyclopedia to spread knowledge to all those who could read it. Such a legacy, though, remains largely overshadowed in mainstream history by use of sex as influence over the French king. However, this kind of political control was rife in the court of Versailles. Pompadour did maintain a close relationship to the king; he relied upon her as a political advisor and even a step-in prime minister. She leveraged such standing to patronize the arts and intellectualism.

However, many male intellectuals resented the rise of women in their part of society. Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the presence of women in intellectual spaces and salons degraded the conversations of men, and blamed them for micromanaging their conversations. Rousseau said:

“they talk about everything so everyone will have something to say; they do not explore questions deeply, for fear of becoming tedious, they propose them as if in passing, deal with them rapidly, precision leads to elegance; each states his opinion and supports it in few words; no one vehemently attacks someone else’s, no one tenaciously defends his own; they discuss for enlightenment, stop before the dispute begins; everyone is instructed, everyone is entertained, all go away contented.”[9]

Rousseau’s negative views of women in politics provide insight into their broader rejection in society during the Enlightenment. Such discrimination had deep roots in ancient Greek society who Enlightenment men looked up to for wisdom. Aristotle, for example, believed that the polis was completely separate from the household, where women were bound in place. The polis only contained men, and the household contained women, who were further constricted by hierarchies like age and wealth. These clear cut societal distinctions meant that women belonged only in the household– there was no room for their participation in political thought or education. 

Not only did women contribute to the rise of free thinking salons, they contributed directly to Enlightenment thought themselves through writing. Women’s theories on Enlightenment ideas drew the eyes and ears of their male peers and undoubtedly shaped the course of Enlightenment thinking’s development. However influential these women were, most of their counterparts remained uneducated and illiterate, contributing to societal gender divides and continued to disempower them. Elite women, on the other hand, were allowed an equal education to men, though their educational institutions were far different. Such systems for women were meant to train them for royalship as empresses and queens, to continue their father’s, husband’s, or brother’s throne. In any of these cases, and as Western society began embracing a system of democracy rather than monarchy, women’s undereducation was used frequently as a justification for their disenfranchisement.

As the ideas of the Enlightenment flowed through a monarchy’s public body, they were smart to adopt some of them. In Russia and Austria-Hungary, female empresses, Catherine the Great and Maria Theresa ruled over millions of people in their respective kingdoms. Both female monarchs were “enlightened” in the ways they included Enlightenment politics into their styles of ruling.

Female philosophers centered the need to provide women with basic access to education and human dignity. Christine de Pizan, who is sometimes considered the first feminist, born in Venice in 1364, grew up in the French court, where her father was the king’s astrologer. Although not noble herself, her participation in the French court gave her contacts and support. Once her career was established, de Pizan wrote works designed to elevate women in society. One work, The Book of the City of Ladies, recounted the histories of intellectual women or great leaders and heroes who were women. She wrote this to offset the hateful images of women that were common in the literature of the day. A second book, The Treasure of the City of Ladies, was written as an advice manual for a French princess. Along with advice for princesses and nobles, de Pizan included sections on advice for women of each rank and role in society. She made it clear that all women were essential and that the expectations of a baroness or an artisan’s wife were just as important as those of a leader. She wrote, “No matter which way I looked at it, I could find no evidence from my own experience to bear out such a negative view of the female nature and habits. Even so [...] I could scarcely find a moral work by any author which didn't devote some chapter or paragraph to attacking the female sex." Sadly, feminist advocacy in this time had to start from the ground up to establish that women were human and deserving of human dignity.

A few centuries later, women’s progress was still stifled by a lack of access to career, power, and education. Living during the French Revolution, a time of social and political upheaval, playwright and political activist Olympe de Gouges challenged the male revolutionaries to include women who, despite being politically active in clubs and salons, were excluded from the “revolutionary” government they were working to establish to achieve “democracy.” At first, de Gouges lived a conventional life; she was forced into a marriage with an older man whom she despised. After he died, she rejected convention and fell in love with a wealthy man who provided for her the rest of her life, although they never married. She saw firsthand the ways that society forced women into financial dependence on men. Financially secure, she was free to pursue her passions. She joined a salon where she met and shared ideas with “the father of economics,” Adam Smith and American politician Thomas Jefferson.

She wrote arguably the first outline for what a government that achieved gender equity would do. The French men had copied the US Declaration of Independence in style and grievances and called it the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. The structure of this document essentially offers a critique of the overall system of government and then lists the grievances against citizens that are causing the separation. De Gouge emulated the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen but changed it to “Woman and the Female Citizen.” The grievances she included were harms against women by men, who acted as tyrants in their homes. She advocated the emancipation of women and freedom for the enslaved people throughout the French Empire. By copying the language used by men, she pointed out the hypocrisy of not extending the privileges of democracy, including rights and property to women, and yet calling it a democracy.

Portrait of Olympe de Gouges[10]

De Gouges was impressive. With little formal education, she pointedly saw that female inferiority was not necessarily inherent but created by rules promulgated by men. It was the systems of government and society that degraded women’s lives. She noticed that everyday power and decision making were in the hands of men and men alone, so her writings were a direct attack on the principles of male supremacy that seemed ever present in government and social systems. In 1791, she wrote,

“Women, wake up [...] recognize your rights! Oh women, women, when will you cease to be blind? What advantages have you gathered in the revolution? A scorn more marked as a stain more conspicuous [...] Whatever the barrier set up against you, it is in your power to overcome them; you only have to want it!”[11]

She dedicated the piece to Marie Antoinette, hoping to bring these hypocrisies to the Queen's attention and gain support from the most famous woman in the empire. The dedication would prove to be her undoing, like Antoinette, de Gouge was executed during the Reign of Terror that followed the more peaceful early phases of the revolution. On November 3, 1793, she was beheaded unceremoniously. On the platform she cried out, “Children of the mother country, you will avenge my death!” It would take many centuries for women to understand what de Gouge had seen so clearly. ​

Marie Antoinette’s public execution[12]

On October 30th, the National Convention issued the decree excluding women from all political activity. All of the women’s political clubs were closed, their leaders were arrested, and the revolutionary engagement that women had experienced trickled to a halt. The president of the Paris Revolutionary Council, Pierre Chalmette, wrote, “Impudent women who want to turn themselves into men, don’t you have enough already?”[13]

Arguably the most well-known feminist in the Western world, Mary Wollstonecraft, was in Paris at the time of the revolution and fled during the Reign of Terror. While she had been raised in England, Wollstonecraft had been inspired by the French revolutionary ideals and had long been corresponding with other Enlightenment thinkers in Europe and had made her way to Paris only a month before the monarchs were executed. She was soon a well-known and respected writer, inspired by de Gouges and horrified when she was executed. Like de Gouge, she had personally experienced the failures of coverture. Her father had been an abuser, and she spent her childhood protecting her mother and younger sisters. She also fell in love with several men who strung her along only to later abandon her. ​

Portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft[14]

Her book, The Vindication of the Rights of Woman, eventually became one of the most well-known pieces of feminist literature in world history. Her writing was in direct response to a drafted plan for a robust public education system proposed by male revolutionaries in France. The system only barely included women, who, as they saw it, only needed a “domestic education” for service in the paternal home. In response to the plan, Wollstonecraft wrote her now-famous treatise on women’s rights. She was furious and tired of girls being raised solely for domestic service and the whims of men. She believed that women deserved to be involved in every aspect of society, but could not if they did not receive an education. She noted that women were intentionally and systematically held back by men and then ridiculed by men for having limitations. Her treatise was widely read in Enlightenment circles.

The remainder of Wollstonecraft’s life was tumultuous, a fate that hindered the spread of her ideas. In Paris, she had a daughter with an American who later abandoned them to take up with another woman. In despair, she attempted to commit suicide twice. Soon after, she met writer and philosopher William Goodwin, who gave her the love and partnership she had long desired. Together they had a daughter in 1797, but just days after, Wollstonecraft died from a ruptured placenta. After her death, Goodwin published her biography, unintentionally exposing some of the more scandalous aspects of her life. Those who had previously supported her ideas now rejected her fully. Wollstonecraft’s work would resurface less than a century later when women’s suffragists around the world organized more intentionally and persistently for equal citizenship.

What these early women philosophers demonstrated in their writing is that women were routinely blamed and hindered in a society that never gave them equal access and education. Without these, women were bound to fall behind men who had access, education, means, and cultural support in systems designed by men and for men. In order for government to function for women, the structure had to change.

Conclusion

Governments have evolved to create order, regulate behavior, and provide for the common good. Yet these systems were never neutral—they were built on patriarchal assumptions that prioritized men’s authority and restricted women’s access to power. Even before the establishment of formal governments, women’s participation in decision-making was often limited by social hierarchies disguised as “natural” differences. As states and legal systems emerged, patriarchal norms became codified through laws and in social systems like coverture, which subsumed women’s identities under their husbands and institutionalized their dependence. Thus, the very nature of Western governments reflected the social order they were built to protect—one that excluded half the population from civic equality.

Women thinkers across centuries challenged these assumptions, questioning the legitimacy of political systems that denied them education, property rights, and citizenship. Philosophers such as Ban Zhao, Christine de Pizan, Olympe de Gouges, and Mary Wollstonecraft exposed how women’s subordination stemmed not from biology but from lack of access and opportunity. They argued that if governments claim to serve justice and the common good, then excluding women contradicts their own moral foundations. Their writings reveal a persistent pattern: whenever women gained literacy or political voice, they immediately questioned the fairness of the structures governing them. Their insights turned the discussion of government’s purpose from one of control and hierarchy to one of inclusion, equality, and shared responsibility.

From this lens, the purpose of government must extend beyond maintaining order or protecting property—it must ensure representation, equity, and dignity for all citizens. Carolyn Merchant and Gerda Lerner’s analyses of patriarchy and power illuminate how systems that exploit nature and women ultimately undermine social balance. The feminist perspective reframes governance as a living, interdependent system—one that, like nature, requires care, reciprocity, and cooperation to thrive. Women’s long struggle for political participation reveals that just and sustainable governance depends not on domination but on restoring equilibrium between people, power, and the planet.

[1] Nguyen, Marie-Lan (2009). Scene from the Trojan War: Greeks fighting the Amazons [photograph]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Achilles_Penthesilea_Pio-Clementino_Inv933.jpg.

[2] McBroom, Patricia. 2021. The Dirt on Patriarchy. https://patriciamcbroom.medium.com/the-dirt-on-patriarchy-96033ca80a62.

[3] Sennedjem and Ti harvesting papyrus (c. 1200 BCE). [drawing]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_harvest.jpg.

[4] Wengrow, David. 2022. TED Talk: A New Understanding of Human History and the Roots of Inequality.  https://youtu.be/8SJi0sHrEI4?si=25VJsk2NgvAohToF.

[5] Fuentes, Agustín. 2022. Race, monogamy, and other lies they told you: Busting myths about human nature. University of California Press. https://www.sapiens.org/biology/busting-myths-about-sex-and-gender.

[6] Bruenhilds Ankunft in Worms Hundeshagenscher Kodex (15th century) Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bruenhilds_Ankunft_in_Worms_Hundeshagenscher_Kodex.jpeg.

[7]  Witt, Henriette De (1887). Fredegund tries to kill her daughter Rigunth [drawing]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Witt_1887_Fredegund_tries_to_kill_her_daughter_Rigunth.jpg.

[8] Sir Robert Filmer, Patriarcha: the Natural Power of Kings, 1680, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Patriarcha;_or_the_Natural_Power_of_Kings.jpg.

[9] Benedetta Craveri, Teresa Waugh (trans), The Age of Conversation (New York: New York Review of Books, 2005). 365.

[10] Kucharsky, Alexander (c. 18th century). Portrait of Olympes de Gouges [painting]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olympe_de_Gouges.png.

[11] Hunt, Lynn. The French Revolution and human rights: a brief documentary history. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1996.

[12] Unknown, “Marie Antoinette's execution in 1793 at the Place de la Révolution,” Wikimedia Commons, 16 October 1793, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ex%C3%A9cution_de_Marie_Antoinette_le_16_octobre_1793.jpg.

[13] “Discussion of Women’s Political Clubs and Their Suppression, 29–30 October 1793.” LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH REVOUTION. https://revolution.chnm.org/d/294.

[14] John Opie (1761–1807), “Mary Wollstonecraft,” circa 1797, Wikimedia Commons, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Wollstonecraft_by_John_Opie_(c._1797).jpg.