I thought this was a helpful corrective to a largely unchecked popular narrative.
It seems to me that there is a fair amount of interest in stretching thin evidence to argue that pre-agriculture societies had strong gender equality. This might be partly be coming from a fear that if people think gender inequality is “ancient” or “natural,” they might conclude that it is also “good” and not to be changed.
That’s part of it, but I think the stronger reason is something like “there were female leaders in the past, therefore today’s gender inequality is the result of social norms”.
EDIT: Also FWIW, the Wikipedia page for Sexism does note under Ancient world:
Evidence, however, is lacking to support the idea that many pre-agricultural societies afforded women a higher status than women today.
I thought this was a helpful corrective to a largely unchecked popular narrative.
That’s part of it, but I think the stronger reason is something like “there were female leaders in the past, therefore today’s gender inequality is the result of social norms”.
EDIT: Also FWIW, the Wikipedia page for Sexism does note under Ancient world: