For most of modern history, people have been taught to view patriarchy as the default structure of civilization — as though male-dominated systems were inevitable, ancient, and somehow biologically ...

Installation view of What if the Matriarchy Was Here All Along? at the Altadena Library. Pictured: works by Akina Cox (all photos AX Mina/Hyperallergic) ALTADENA, California — Halfway through “What if ...

Ten years ago, Cynthia Eller offered a useful and long-overdue demolition of a mistaken idea that gained widespread currency in women’s studies and in some sectors of popular culture. In Ten years ago ...

Big Heart, Strong Hands is the story of women on the isolated Estonian islands of Kihnu and Manija in the Baltic Sea. Often viewed as the last matriarchal society in Europe, the older women there take ...

In a place where men have historically been absent, the role of women on this Estonian isle has expanded beyond traditional gender roles and into every aspect of life on dry land. Hands etched in ...

Strong female characters fill the horror genre. Some of our earliest folklore features not only the monsters that terrify us, but the women who fight back. In fact, it’s in the stories about things ...

“I recently began reading the book ‘When God Was a Women’ by Merlin Stone, written some 30 years ago. In it she points out that Near Eastern societies from 9000 BCE or thereabouts to 2500 BCE or ...