The evolutionary origins of patriarchy.

A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: implications for the origins of sex differences.

This article evaluates theories of the origins of sex differences in human behavior. It reviews the cross-cultural evidence on the behavior of women and men in nonindustrial societies, especially the activities that contribute to the sex-typed division of labor and patriarchy. To explain the cross-cultural findings, the authors consider social constructionism, evolutionary psychology, and their...

Unpacking Hetero-Patriarchy: Tracing the Conflation of Sex, Gender & Sexual Orientation to Its Origins

What is Patriarchy?

The concept of Patriarchy itself is not a contribution of feminist theories. Many social scientists in the nineteenth century wrote about it as a more civilized or complex form of organization compared to the primitive matriarchies. Engels referred to it as the earliest system of domination establishing that Patriarchy is “the world historical defeat of the female sex.” In this sense, it is sai...

Patriarchy, Male Competition, and Excess Male Mortality

Studies of patriarchy typically focus on women’s subordination to men and the detrimental consequences for females. In this study, however, the authors predict that greater social empowerment of women will be associated with smaller mortality differences between women and men, which may seem counterintuitive from a nonevolutionary perspective. In other words, they predict that higher levels of ...

Double Colonisation of Palestine in Sahar Khalifeh’s Wild Thorns

“Wild thorns” is a novel written by the Palestinian novelist Sahar Khalifeh; it focuses on the colonisation of Palestine from a feminist point of view. She considers the Israeli colonisation as a patriarchy. This paper aims at investigating two types of colonization that have been represented in the form of patriarchy in the novel. The investigation of the issue of Palestine from a feminist poi...