If you could be part of any civilization

a reply to: OrphanApology

baby creation and child care

Sign me up!!!
Grab yer rifle boy, while Mommy is at work, were go'in a huntin!
Can't be out long though, Mommy has to use the hell outta me tonight!
Kind of sounds like the native Americans.

a reply to: g146541

Depends on the civilization.

There were a few native tribes that were fairly egalitarian by the standard of that time(compared to European based societies anyway) such as the Iroquois. Still had separated gender roles but wasn't quite as discriminatory as other societies toward women at the time.

originally posted by: OrphanApology
a reply to: Cuervo

I haven't seen any indication of a truly egalitarian society where women were able to pursue personal interests(not just upper class women). Show me an example and I will be interested in researching it further.

From what I have seen women up until recently have existed primarily for baby creation and child care. There have been a few outliers that fought the system so to speak but it was certainly not the doing of said civilization.

It could be argued that we don't even have a "truly egalitarian" society right now. Even matriarchal cultures and societies had roles that were expected by each gender.

Since I used Uruk as my answer to the OP, I'll use them as an example. The early Sumerian texts mention women in nearly every role and profession. Doctors, business owners, politicians, priests, writers, etc. They were outnumbered by men in these roles (just like today) but they were there.

Places like Sumer (and similar matriarchal societies) shifted into the familiar patriarch model due to conquests. When there is conquest, there is occupation and debts. Debts require new ways of payment (since economies aren't set up for war) and that's where people started using creative and evil forms of compensation. This included slavery and using women as commodities.

We get around that today with quantitative easing (so we can be in perpetual war) but, rest assured, if we couldn't print our own money, women would be getting sold as commodities to pay back taxes and credit cards even today. War will always do this, even to the victors.

West Texas ca 1960.

a reply to: resistanceisfutile

I'd love the chance to experience being part of a Mesolithic group as the ice retreated from what would become Britain (and Doggerland) as the trees and animals came back.

A time when anyone on earth was happy just to see another human being, while able to think and act freely without fear. When it was an opportunity to share rather than an opportunity to steal from another. Today, most of society is withdrawn, self serving and blames other people for their misfortunes. Where's the RESET button?

Definitely the Indus Valley Civilization. A society run by women? Where do I sign up? Maybe drool over Inanna's stunning beauty for a while .

Aztec civilization with ritual human sacrifice and priest kings.

Ancient Hawaii for sure, on the Island of Kauai preferably. long before the invaders arrived. ~$heopleNation

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
West Texas ca 1960.

I experienced that boom. It was wonderful!

I'd live with the Native Americans, definitely.

Being male, I don't have to worry about Orphan Apology's legitimate concerns.

I'll tell you what I'd like to have been. I'd like to have been a country parson in mid-1850s England, with a nice fat cure that earned me a comfortable £1,500 a year or so and a curate to take care of most of my duties while I wrote monographs on Egyptian papyrii or hunted butterflies in Ceylon. I would have 'doubts', of course, but since gentlemen never discuss religion it wouldn't matter, and I'd cut a fine figure in the pulpit — when I chose to appear in it, that is — with my stole and surplice while I enjoined Christian charity on my neighbours, raised funds for the Missionary Appeal and wrote letters to the Times in support of the Oxford Movement.