ABSTRACT
In 1986, Gerda Lerner published The Creation of Patriarchy , a historical examination of the factors that led to men’s dominance over women in public life beginning some 6,000 years ago. She argued that gendered social arrangements are a product of a gendered division of labor that met the needs of most societies at the time. As agriculture waned as the dominant mode of labor, a lot of work shifted to factories during the industrial revolution, although, obviously, farming-based societies continue to exist. And later even industrial societies have been supplanted in some parts of the world with post-industrial, information-based and service-based societies. The gendered division of labor began to make its appearance in the dawn of agricultural societies for several reasons. First, food could be stored, which meant that wealth could be accumulated. As a result, children became an economic asset because they could start working in fields at a young age and produce more than they could consume.
