Anthropologists have studied hunter gatherer tribes for a long time and it is not as simple as those with the most confidence becomes leaders. For example, among the San people tribe leadership is shared by the elders. And anyone can become an elder by surviving til old age. In day to day tasks, such as during hunting, who leads the hunt is determined on a rotating schedule so that all men get to lead it from time to time.

Designated leaders probably didn't become the norm until about 4000 bc when early civilizations arose.

Another interesting tidbit noted by many anthropologists is that boasting is strictly forbidden. E.g if a tribesman catches a big prey, he must be humble and can not brag about how good of a hunter he is. It is different from the Western World, in which bragging is expected and necessary for leaders (case in point: Trump).

>Another interesting tidbit noted by many anthropologists is that boasting is strictly forbidden.

Are you saying that this applies to every tribe in the world? Because if so, I don't buy it. It's too far fetched that every tribe in the world except everyone who advanced past the hunter gatherer stage would share this cultural trait. Aside from it being unreasonable that all tribes would share this trait, it would also seem to imply that modest people cannot advance to the modern age, which is also difficult to swallow.

No, I should have clarified that my comment was only about the San people, aka Bushmen. Those people are the closest to how humans lived for thousands of years before they wandered out of Africa.

I don't think other primitive peoples have designated leadership roles either, like we do, but I'm not sure.

Ok. I don't have any trouble believing that could be a cultural trait of those peoples. Thanks for clarifying.

The principle of sexual inequality (and male superiority) appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon--arising only around the time of agriculture. Even subsequent to the development of agricultures, plenty of civilizations have practiced matrilineal succession, with no apparent cost to their dealings with neighboring societies (indeed, some even flourished at the expense of others--consider the Iroquois, for example).

I'm sorry but this is pure myth. There has never been a human society where primary political/executive power was vested in women, except some developed and recent examples.

The idea of tribes controlled by women just never happened; not once. It's wishful revisionism motivated by modern politics.

Pinker discusses this a bit in this speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw

And of course other have noted the male dominance in pretty much all the similar primate species. Human are brute animals, nothing more.

And no, just because (pre)historically it was this way doesn't mean I'm saying it ought to be this way everywhere and forever. Natural != ideal.

What about the picts?

Women in Pictish society were regarded as the equal of men and succession in leadership (later kingship) was matrilineal (through the mother's side), with the reigning chief succeeded by either his brother or perhaps a nephew but not through patrilineal succession of father to son. [0]

[0]http://www.ancient.eu/picts/

You have a small farm community of four houses, a few hundred/thousands years ago. One of the families has a animal die and is in dire need for help. Who do they ask for help?

Some warrior, sitting on a iron throne and passing down judgment from high in one the houses, or is it the old women of the village who carries the memories of who did whom a favor and is responsible for the community threads that binds the families together. Who has the power to make the decision?

>Some warrior, sitting on a iron throne and passing down judgment from high in one the houses, or is it the old women of the village who carries the memories of who did whom a favor and is responsible for the community threads that binds the families together. Who has the power to make the decision?

if recent thousand of years of history is any guidance - the warrior on the throne will be asked to punish the witch[es] (some of those old women) for the curse that caused the animal to die, and the property of those witches would be shared between the warrior and the family of the reporter.

While the waves of witch trial came and decline, that is mostly a 15th and early 16th centuries concept done by the church and not by small farm communities. There is no "thousand of years of history" where farm communities regularly killed the elder women, and its common theme in non-European/Christian history.

Its kind of telling if current view of history is that all elder women was hunted down and killed as witches under a single religion.

>The principle of sexual inequality (and male superiority) appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon

Recent? Even gorilla have males bigger (and thus leading the pack) than females and so far prehistoric humans are known to have been that way too.

It is exactly the rise of civilization(agriculture, technology, complex social structure, etc) which allowed for situations with female leadership.

Gorilla males are about 50% larger compared to human males being about 20% larger. There is much in our anatomy that implies humans behaved more as polyamorous tribes than solitary male harems.

If you're really interested, look up "Sex at Dawn"