The Roots of Gender Inequality

Introduction

How did we end up here, where women must constantly justify their ambitions, power, and sometimes even their very presence? Once, it was a world that revered and worshipped goddesses. Today, it is a world desiring equality but still packed with stubborn remnants of millennia-old conditioning dragging feet.

For thousands of years, women’s roles and potential have been shaped, limited, and controlled by societal norms rooted in patriarchy. Women, once revered and celebrated as central to life, have been struggling to assert their will and leadership, in other words, transcend themselves, as Simone De Beauvoir called it, due to these ingrained norms that we do not even see. While we appreciate all efforts to “add” women back into the game, we believe most of these initiatives address only the symptoms of the problem rather than the roots of the problem and uprooting them.

We want a world where girls grow up seeing themselves as powerful, respected, and limitless, in a sense mirroring the reverence for women in ancient cultures. A world where women co-lead unapologetically and their ambitions are not questioned or constrained but embraced.

We, as the authors of this essay, firmly believe that to achieve this vision, we must first acknowledge and then unlearn the deep, historically ingrained patriarchal conditioning that has shaped our societal values and norms for millennia. Only through this societal shift and systemic change, we can craft a better future, where true equality is not aspirational but ingrained and inherent.

Women reclaiming their power to transcend societal roles and redefining leadership starts with unlearning millennia of conditioning to shape a better future.

Historical Context

3100 BCE…The sun rises over the city of Uruk and starts casting its warmth on the temple steps where a young girl, Lara, no older than twelve, kneels beside her mother. They are here to celebrate Ishtar, the Goddess of creation, who governs life’s power, rhythm, and tempo. Lara watches, mesmerized, while her mother places offerings of wheat and honey, whispering some words of reverence.

One might think this is just a ritual, but it reflects the world Lara was born into and lives in. She grows up in a place where stories of powerful goddesses mirror her own potential. The temple’s brown painted strong walls tell Lara stories of strength, wisdom, and harmony with nature. Lara is seen. Her place is central to life, and her future is limitless and not confined by any glass ceilings.

At the marketplace, where they go next, women barter. Children around sing songs of the Goddess Ishtar’s strength and mightiness. Everywhere Lara looks, she is reminded that respect and power are her rights from birth, not some privileges she must fight for as some do in another time, another place…

2025 CE…Today…Now we are in Zara’s world, where the stories she hears reflect her, but only in ways that confine her to society’s expected roles, not like those that encourage her to rise above and beyond. From the moment she is born, subtle cues shape her sense of what is possible and what she can achieve. Toy aisles are divided by pink and blue, emphasizing that nurturing and domestic roles are hers, and leadership and adventure belong to others. Heroes are the norm, while heroines are exceptions.

Zara is praised for being quiet and agreeable at school, and her boldness is met with raised eyebrows. At home, she is constantly reminded to be careful, considerate, and measured, while she sees her brothers encouraged to take risks.

These small moments compound over time, shaping what she believes she can achieve…

When Zara enters the workplace, this millennia-long cultural conditioning is heavy on her shoulders. Despite this heavy burden, she tries her best but cannot help thinking, “Do I belong here?” Meanwhile, 5000 years ago, Lara grows up knowing she very much belongs to the very center of the life she was born into.

For thousands of years, women were central to life, including Lara’s time. They were not regarded just as caretakers and in charge of only domestic life but as creators, leaders, and influential societal figures. In the earliest societies, women were regarded as the sole life-givers because men’s role in reproduction was not yet understood. Therefore, women’s ability to procreate and bring life was perceived as a divine power, something exclusive to women that no man can replicate. This gave rise to worshipping Goddesses like Inanna, Ishtar, Cybele as the symbol of fertility, creation, power, and sustenance. Women were revered as priestesses, healers, oracles, and leaders. In short, women’s status was elevated in the goddess-worshipping religions, where they were regarded as powerful. These religions also shaped the societal values accordingly, establishing women as central figures in life.

A striking example of this reverence in earlier societies is the “Seated Woman” of ?atalh?yük, a neolithic figurine dated back to approx. 7500-6000 BCE. Some scholars submit that she was a Goddess symbolizing fertility, some others for a matriarch leader, and some others completely disagree with these arguments, finding it not enough evidence for matriarchy. A goddess, a matriarch, or any other societal role, what strikes us most is her upright posture, arms resting on two feline-like creatures. She exudes control and dominance. She is the embodiment of authority. ?

However, this balance tipped to the other end of the spectrum over time. The goddesses became gods, the priestesses became priests, and the mother became the wife. Once regarded as creators of life, women were redefined by gradually taking away their influence in religious, societal, and economic structures. By the time patriarchal societies were fully developed, men exclusively possessed and controlled power. Something Friedrich Engels would later call “world historical defeat of the female sex,”. This shift was gradual and did not happen overnight. It was deliberate and embedded deeply into society through systematic changes in religious narratives and social organization. But, why did it happen? Before we explore the process behind how it happened, let’s highlight some primary drivers of why it happened.

The decline of women’s central and divine role in society was a deliberate, gradual, and systemic shift. We argue that this shift was driven by three main motivations: control of power, control of wealth, and social dominance. Collectively, these motivations reshaped the structure of civilizations, ensuring male supremacy was the default norm for generations.

Why did it happen?

Control of Power

In the earliest human societies, women were revered for their unique ability to create life. Before the role of men in reproduction was fully understood, this was the power of the female, which, in turn, gave them powerful roles in religion and social life. As men realized their role in procreation (reproduction), the ability to control women’s ability to bear children became a way to control population growth. As the clans and tribes grew stronger with a larger population, this meant power for them. Especially as conflicts arose between groups, the victorious clans began seizing women from rival groups and forced them into reproductive roles to increase their numbers. (According to Gerda Lerner, this antedates slavery and makes it possible. By the time slavery had become widespread, the subordination of women was a historical fact) This was the first fundamental step in patriarchy’s rise. By controlling reproduction, men controlled power, and with it, the future.

Control of Wealth

Once men secured control over reproduction, the logical next step was ensuring that wealth, property, land, and resources were inherited through patrilineal lineage, as opposed to the matrilineal (through mother’s line) inheritance in earlier societies. This shift was accelerated especially after the agricultural revolution, which enabled the surplus production of food and goods and the notion of private property. And with it, the accumulation of wealth became a crucial motivation because it brought the ability to exert power over those who did not have wealth.

Social Dominance

With power and wealth secured in men’s hands, the next step was to permanently establish male dominance in society through relevant hierarchical structures. This was achieved through various tools and methods so that for generations to come, patriarchy was seen as the “natural order” rather than an imposed and historical system. Controlling the social hierarchy (social dominance), which is, in a sense, controlling governance, law, and social leadership, was so crucial because it enabled men to reshape the relevant narratives to reinforce their dominance. (We will explore and expand this more in the next (how did it happen?) part.)

In summary, the goal was not just to gain power from women, but make it seem natural, unquestionable, inevitable, so deeply embedded in society. So much that still echoes in Zara’s world today!

As mentioned earlier, the decline of women’s central and divine role in society was a deliberate, gradual, and systemic shift, not a sudden event. Let us now explore how this shift happened, what mechanisms were in play.

How did it happen?

As Gerda Lerner argued in her seminal book, The Creation of Patriarchy, the shift from female-revering societies to patriarchal dominance was a deliberate and historical process, carried out over millennia. Once men had the motivation to control power, wealth, and social dominance, they must have needed to establish some systems to cement this control. We see three primary mechanisms were in play to serve this purpose: control of women’s bodies, control of law, and the control of the narrative. These mechanisms ensured much more than patriarchy’s initial push; they enabled patriarchy to be internalized, normalized, and passed down through generations over generations as the societal norm.

Control of Women’s Bodies

Controlling reproduction meant controlling the future. But, how do you even control reproduction? That required first a better understanding of men’s role in procreation (reproduction). Once it was understood, deliberate efforts were put in place to ensure a woman’s reproductive capacity “served” only her husband’s lineage. In other words, to achieve the transition from matrilineal to patrilineal lineage. (As a reminder, matrilineal or patrilineal does not mean matriarchy or patriarchy.) For patrilineal lineage, it is important to be certain of a child’s father. This necessitates the control of women’s bodies for reproduction.

Three means have been primary to achieve this: 1) Women were treated like property, first of fathers, then of husbands, 2) Virginity was enforced as a tool for male control to police and restrict female sexuality, and 3) Women’s freedom of movement was restricted through veiling, seclusion, and dependency on male guardianship.

Angela Saini, in her book The Patriarch: The Origins of Inequality, highlights the persistent of these means even in our recent history, within the more “advanced” societies, as recent as 19th and 20th centuries, beautifully connecting them to the Age of Enlightenment.

Control of Law

To embed and codify patriarchy into the structure of society, the legal systems were rewritten, ensuring that power and authority stayed exclusively with men. Matrilineal inheritance was shattered, enabling the property to be passed through only male lineage. Women were prevented from legal or political roles. Marriage laws formalized women’s subjugation. Divorce and sexual choices were mostly criminalized (in most cases violently)

Therefore, once the legal authority transitioned over to men, patriarchy could not be challenged effectively because it was the law!

Control of the Narrative

The practices to control women’s bodies began, and patriarchy was codified in the law. However, these are not enough to truly embed this into the hearts and minds of the society so that the male rule feels natural, inevitable, and even divine. As Merlin Stone thoroughly explores in her inspirational book, When God Was a Woman, the cultural and religious narratives, including the symbols, were also to be systematically rewritten.

First, the Goddesses were demoted or replaced with male deities. Ishtar, once the all-powerful female deity in Mesopotamia, was put under the shadow of the mighty male God Marduk. In Greek mythology, the most powerful female figure, Hera, is reduced to a jealous wife. (While Zeus’ rule was unchallenged, and he did whatever he pleased to!) Monotheistic religions presented God as an all-powerful male god. (Interestingly, the role of creativity and procreativity, once a defining aspect of fertility goddesses, are ascribed to this all-powerful God, as Lerner mentions in The Creation of Patriarchy) Last but not least, the women were erased from the religious leadership roles, replacing priestesses with male priests.

Secondly, women were reframed as “lesser”. In older Sumerian myths, women had been the creators of life, then they were cast as temptresses (Lilith). The serpent, once the symbol of wisdom, was repositioned as a deceiving figure, the woman's helper in her temptress role…Athena came to life from Zeus’ head. Eve was created from Adam’s rib. One of the most revered philosophers, Aristotle, the “First Teacher”, described women as “incomplete men”. In Politics, he wrote, “the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject.”. All these collectively portray women as “lesser”, hence, better fit for passive roles rather than leadership. In Simone de Beauvoir’s words, for the immanence roles rather than the transcendence roles, which we will explore shortly in the upcoming sections. Rewriting the cultural and religious narratives normalized and moralized patriarchy, even in the minds of women.

In summary, historically, patriarchy was not a sudden event. It was a deliberate, historical event of restructuring society using three powerful mechanisms: control of women’s bodies, control of law, and control of the narrative. These mechanisms still shape Zara’s world today, echoing from ancient times, which we are trying to evolve through attempts mainly to cure the symptoms rather than root causes. We believe understanding and addressing the roots and the mechanisms of patriarchy is as important, if not more than the band-aid solutions at the surface levels. As Gerda Lerner beautifully puts it, patriarchy is a historical construction. And what was constructed can be deconstructed.

The fact that patriarchy is a historical construction, not a biological truth, might be the reason why Simone de Beauvoir came up with her famous poetic line “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”. Having navigated some of the far corners of the historical landscape, let us now explore the topic through an illuminating philosophical lens.

Philosophical Lens

Simone de Beauvoir’s Perspective

?“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”?Simone de Beauvoir

?“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” wrote Simone de Beauvoir, giving us a different perspective to see how societal structures primed women into roles they did not freely choose or were biologically destined to become. Being an existentialist, she leveraged the existential concepts of immanence and transcendence to articulate her thoughts on the problem of gender inequality. For context, “transcendence” means the ability to shape one’s life by continuously recreating oneself. In patriarchal societies this was largely and systematically reserved for men. “Immanence”, on the other hand, implies passivity and a life more defined by how one serves others, which has been the expectation of women, in the same societies, especially through domestic, reproductive, and supportive, repetitive tasks.

“The human being is not anything in itself but instead is the product of the way it makes itself.” Simone de Beauvoir

Another key concept Simone de Beauvoir leverages in her work, exploring this problem, is the idea of “objectification”, highlighting how women have mostly been positioned as “the Other”. (Hence, the name of her seminal book; The Second Sex).

Consider Cartesian (as Rene Descartes strongly advocated) dualism of subject and object. In a dualist view of subject and object, the subject has the active and primary role, acting on a passive, secondary object. You are the subject of your life, continuously acting on other things: objects. When society primes and positions women as objects, meaning fulfill male or societal expectations, it denies those women autonomy (sometimes even agency), reinforcing unequal power dynamics. A temptress in an ancient narrative or a relegated helpful or ornamental role, women have been repeatedly diminished to second-class status in these societies shaped by patriarchal views.

This is not a tactic that only patriarchal societies have used to push women into lesser roles. It has been used systematically throughout history, all over. Objectification of others is the easiest way to gain a superior role, sometimes even to justify wrongdoings unto those “others”.

“Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female- whenever she behaves as a human being, she is said to imitate the male.” Simone de Beauvoir

Contradiction in Her Own Life

Even visionary thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir may not easily “transcend” the cultural forces of her era on herself. Her life illustrates this tension vividly, manifesting itself in her relationship with her partner, Jean-Paul Sartre.

Her philosophical contributions were immense, some of them were on par with or exceeded those of Sartre. However, during her lifetime, she was often recognized as a writer, not a philosopher. Sartre remained the dominant intellectual figure in public discourse. Societal biases (maybe even partially internalized by herself) made it difficult for her to openly claim the title of a philosopher. She rarely challenged this lesser perception in relation to Sartre.

She famously states, “My life is my philosophy,” but her relationship with Sartre did not make it easy for her to live up to her feminist ideals. While she kept urging women to transcend traditional roles society imposed on them, she, herself, could not prevent Sartre from receiving the lion’s share of recognition during her long partnership with him. This makes us think that even those who actively seek to dismantle social structures might not be able to break free from them.

Modern Implications

Looking at our modern world through the philosophical lens we explored and with the historical context we mentioned in mind, we still see much of what Simone de Beauvoir critiqued in our daily lives today, though sometimes in more disguised forms. In politics and business, action plans to increase women’s representation in legislative structures and corporate boardrooms are indeed a step forward. Yet, they are not enough if the deeper structural biases are not addressed. Women in leadership roles are still scrutinized disproportionately. Their assertiveness is mislabeled as aggression, indicating the persisting double standard.

Economically, women still face a disproportionate burden compared to men. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, the need created a pull for women into the workforce, but it has not freed them from their traditional domestic responsibilities, hence the disproportionate, dual burden. Most of them continue carrying out their unpaid labor at home, from childcare to housework, along with their full-time jobs. And, even at their full-time work, there are clear wage gaps for the same roles. Moreover, women still remain significantly underrepresented in high-salary or leadership positions, where more critical decisions are made for businesses and society. Closing these gaps will require more than equal representation efforts, which we, as the authors of this article, believe are necessary steps, however, they heal more the symptoms than the root causes. Healing the root causes demands a cultural shift in how society regards and values women, their authentic selves, work, and ambitions.

“Her wings are cut, and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.” Simone de Beauvoir

On a broader, normative level (as in expected level), social norms still subtly reinforce that women should be nurturing and caring. While these traits are not to be disregarded, they should not set certain expectations to the levels that confine women into only supportive roles, framing their ambition as unnatural. Polite gestures, such as staying away from coarse language (only in front of women!) may be regarded and appear as considerate but likely actually highlight their perceived fragility by men, subtly separating them from positions of authority or highly influential roles.

Quite a few among us are now questioning why we continue to speak of a “female CEO” or a “working mother”, while we almost never hear “male CEO” or “working father”. True, these are the outcomes of thousands of years of conditioning, and with that, we regard questioning these identifiers as a positive sign. Genuine equality demands that roles and achievements are defined on their own, without gender qualifiers or references.

What do we recommend?: Unlearn, Relearn, and Redefine

The roots of gender inequality, which we see and experience today as their modern implications, are deeply embedded in our historical narratives, cultural heritages, and societal structures, mostly enabled by patriarchy. As we articulated, we do not believe this was a biologic (hence, organic) or an inevitable evolution. Rather, it was systematically constructed and reinforced over millennia. And, as Gerda Lerner powerfully advocated in her work, because it is a historic construct, it can be deconstructed. However, achieving true equality requires more than just adding women into existing power structures or implementing what we call “band-aid” initiatives. It requires a fundamental shift in our perception of power, leadership, and gender, as well as the values we associate with them.

Lara’s and Zara’s stories show that these deeply entrenched notions, hence the internalized roles, do not vanish or shift overnight. The narratives we are told and absorb starting from our childhoods shape our paths, and collectively the society’s. If we want a world where women will not have to fight their way through because their gender, we must actively dismantle millennia of conditioning and redefine what it means to have power, to lead, gender, and the values we associate with them.

We recommend a 3-step approach:

1. Awareness, Unlearning and then Re-Learning

Our first step is to recognize and be aware that gender inequality is embedded in the narratives we internalize from childhood and carry within ourselves rather than being external barriers. The difference between Lara’s unlimited world (in terms of opportunities for transcendence) and Zara’s constrained one shows some invisible walls are built around women’s ambitions to transcend. Therefore, awareness is the first step to demolish these walls. Awareness, which is our core motivation with this work, then enables unlearning, which, in turn, enables relearning of the aforementioned notions and norms. Ask yourself:

• When you picture a “leader”, who do you see?
• Do you describe women’s success differently from men’s?
• Do you celebrate women’s achievements as exceptions rather than expectations?

2. Shifting from Symptoms to Systems

While we appreciate the efforts to increase female representation in necessary domains, they often address only the symptoms of the problem rather than the root causes. The problem is not that women lack ambition or confidence to transcend, but they keep facing hurdles of structures that were never designed for their inclusion. Efforts need to go beyond metrics. Ask yourself:

• Who truly holds decision-making power?
• Which leadership styles are celebrated and promoted?
• Are policies reimagined to embrace diverse leadership, or just stretched to accommodate women in still male-defined frameworks?

3. Redefine Power & Leadership

For millennia, women have been systematically confined into immanence; supporting our domestic roles. Men, on the other hand, claimed transcendence and occupied leadership roles and shaped the world we live in today. Also, men defined “power” and “leadership” on their own terms, mostly around competition and hierarchy. When we applaud “strong women” as remarkable outliers, we fall into the trap built within the invisible walls we mentioned earlier. Instead, strength is not to be gendered. Power must be redefined to include collaboration and empathy, not only competitive and dominance terms. Leadership must be redefined inclusive of shared success, not only hierarchy. Similarly, we challenge the connotation of leadership definitions with boldness and assertiveness, which are more associated with masculinity. This would also enable men to liberate themselves from certain rigidly defined expectations, ultimately creating a more gender-balanced and human-centric leadership model. Ask yourself: ??

• What if we no longer referred to someone as a “female CEO” or a “working mother” because these labels were no longer necessary?
• How would the workplaces look if compassion and collaboration were equally valued as boldness or assertiveness?
• How could men also benefit from doing away with rigid expectations of aggressiveness and hyper-competitiveness in leadership roles?

In Closing

Recognizing the roots of gender inequality is a crucial step, but it is only the beginning. Truly addressing gender inequality requires actively uprooting these roots, which, in turn, demands unlearning and relearning the norms and definitions systematically embedded in our societies over millennia. All these steps need our collective and holistic commitments from individuals, organizations, and institutions.

The question is not “Can we achieve equality?” but rather “How much longer will we accept anything less?”

How much longer will we accept Zara’s world, knowing that Lara’s world once existed?

Kaan Demiryürek & Mine Kobal Ok

8 March 2025

?Primary Resources:

Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986

Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Translated by H.M. Parshley, Jonathan Cape, 1953.

Brandmaier, Grace Varada, "Patriarchy and the Power of Myth: Exploring the Significance of a Matriarchal Prehistory" (2015).?Senior Projects Spring 2015. 119.

Saini, Angela. The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality. Beacon Press, 2023.

Foreman, Amanda. The Ascent of Women. BBC Documentary Series, 2015.

Engels, Friedrich. The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Translated by Ernest Untermann, Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1902.