Publishers Weekly
01/30/2023
Patriarchy is not an irresistible monolith, but rather an unstable power structure that requires constant maintenance, according to this wide-ranging and incisive study. Science journalist Saini (Superior) surveys the ancient Nairs, “a powerful caste-based community that... organiz itself along matrilineal lines” in present-day India, and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of tribal nations in North America, in which women held important leadership roles, revealing that both societies underwent a long, partial, and contested shift in gender norms as a result of Western colonialism. Noting that 18th- and 19th-century Westerners looked to Bronze Age Greece for “validation of the unequal societies they were choosing to build,” Saini suggests that gender inequality emerged with the rise of the first states, which required a stable population to defend and enrich them and used gender roles as one method to enforce order: “The moment gender becomes salient is when it becomes an organizing principle.” Elsewhere, she examines feminist reforms in the former Soviet Union and the imposition of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran and Afghanistan to underscore that inequity and egalitarianism are in constant conflict. Encouraging feminists to look to the past for inspiration, Saini makes a persuasive case that patriarchy is more vulnerable to change than it appears. It’s a game changer. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
A useful resource for scholars and students of gender studies and cultural anthropology.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Saini makes a persuasive case that patriarchy is more vulnerable to change than it appears. It’s a game changer.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The Patriarchs . . . shows that more equal societies are possible and do thrive – historically, now and everywhere.”
—The Guardian
“In The Patriarchs, Angela Saini [turns] to archaeology, anthropology, and ancient history to warn readers that neither gender equity nor patriarchy is preordained.”
—Science
“The great value of this slim and accessible volume is the sweeping story it tells about how ‘men came to rule’ in a world that was once much more diverse in its social structures.”
—Kristen R. Ghodsee, Jacobin
“Angela Saini is one of today’s most incisive and important writers about humanity’s troubling turns, twists, and biases. The Patriarchs, a book that is at turns myth-busting, startling, enraging, surprisingly hopeful, and addictively readable, wholly underlines that point. Don’t miss it.”
—Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection
“Based on extensive interviews with leading experts, this wide-ranging book injects new life into debates on the origins of patriarchy. Saini shows how much theorizing about the roots of gender inequality is a ‘racket,’ resting on shaky assumptions about human biology and social norms, and serving to naturalize what it should seek to question: the penetration of household and family relations by predatory systems of power and exploitation.”
—David Wengrow, coauthor of The Dawn of Everything
“Gripping and beautifully written, Saini’s The Patriarchs is mind-bending. The Patriarchs compels us to look beyond what is and what was, and imagine what could be.”
—Jennifer Shahade, author of Chess Queens: The True Story of a Chess Champion and the Greatest Female Players of All Time
“In a world sewn together by the myth of permanence, The Patriarchs offers a portal to possibility: the way things are is not necessarily how they could have been. Male supremacy was never inevitable; it was a political choice. Once again, Angela Saini has the receipts. She is scientific journalism at its best—equally engaging and enraging in her forensic denaturalization of power.”
—Alok Vaid-Menon, author of Beyond the Gender Binary
“The prose is sparkling, the information is richly textured, and the insights are plentiful. The Patriarchs is essential reading for anyone interested in how the legacy of the past continues to shape the relations between women and men, and how women have struggled to throw off its yoke.”
—David Livingstone Smith, author of Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization
“The Patriarchs cements Saini’s status as a writer of the highest caliber. . . . The reader is sure to be informed, infuriated, inspired, and spurred to action by her thorough investigations of how and why bad ideas are recycled and gender-based injustice persists.”
—Dr. Amy Parish, primatologist, University of Southern California
“Saini deftly interweaves interviews with experts in genetics, archaeology, history, sociology, and literature, as well as social and legal activists, with nuanced interpretations of key moments in the history of women to understand how oppression becomes normalized and patriarchy almost inevitable. Filled with important stories and the data underlying them, The Patriarchs helps us grapple with the big questions about the deep histories and present battles over power, gender relations, and women’s experiences in a world that often seems bent on keeping us down.”
—Rebecca Futo Kennedy, chair of Classical Studies, Denison University
“A deep and incisive look at the historical origins of patriarchal structures we are still fighting today. A must-read for every feminist.”
—Rafia Zakaria, author of Against White Feminism
“Bold, incisive, and beautifully told, The Patriarchs is a truly riveting investigation into the origins and consequences of structural power. The depth and originality of Angela Saini’s thought and research are breathtaking and world changing. A phenomenally important and deeply enjoyable book.”
—Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World
Kirkus Reviews
2022-12-06
A sometimes-belabored but mostly accessible argument that male domination is a cultural and not biological imperative.
Why have men held disproportionate power across societies and millennia? British science journalist Saini, author of Superior: The Return of Race Science, combs through the archaeological and anthropological literature to examine leading theories. While patriarchy is widely seen in both human societies and the animal kingdom, there is plenty of variation in both realms, including greater or lesser degrees of inequality and of women’s participation in leadership. While some scientists—almost always men—have insisted that the patriarchy is the natural outgrowth of the biological fact that men are larger and stronger, the evidence more broadly points to cultural constraints. Usefully, Saini resurrects the once-forgotten work of anthropologist Marija Gimbutas, who examined Neolithic societies to adduce an “old Europe” centered on goddess worship and gender parity—until it was conquered by a warrior society from the Eurasian steppes. This hypothesis of migration and submission was long disputed, but, as Saini notes, “remnants of ancient DNA point to the likelihood that it did happen,” perhaps 4,500 years ago, when Stonehenge was built. Gimbutas has not been the only scholar to point to times, mostly ancient, when women’s roles were far higher up in the social hierarchy, as in the dynasties of ancient Mesopotamia and the traditions across later centuries of female warriors. Interestingly, Saini brings these traditions to the present by examining the supposed gender equality instilled by the Bolshevik Revolution, which, though largely undone (and now officially disavowed by the Putin regime), did witness the phenomenon of more than 800,000 Soviet women fighting alongside men in World War II. From start to finish, Saini sounds a constant theme: “As far back as we can see, humans have landed on rainbows of different ways of organizing themselves, always negotiating the rules around gender and its meaning. Nothing was static.”
A useful resource for scholars and students of gender studies and cultural anthropology.
