That alone doesn’t prove that civilization and science weren’t developed in a hypothetical parallel universe without patriarchy. It is an evidence, but I am not sure how strong.
Generally, if we have X everywhere, it is difficult to say whether all things that happened, happened because of X, despite X, or regardless of X. Things happening “because of” should happen with greater probability, or sooner, and things happening “despite” should happen with smaller probability, or later… but if we have X for millenia, even the “later” happens eventually.
In a similar way, I have seen people attributing to Christianity everything that happened in Europe since 0 AD. Is that fair or not? Sometimes we can use China as a control group. In case of patriarchy, we don’t have such “China”. (And no, very small indigenous tribes aren’t a good control group. There are differences in population size, access to resources, etc.)
That alone doesn’t prove that civilization and science weren’t developed in a hypothetical parallel universe without patriarchy. It is an evidence, but I am not sure how strong.
Generally, if we have X everywhere, it is difficult to say whether all things that happened, happened because of X, despite X, or regardless of X. Things happening “because of” should happen with greater probability, or sooner, and things happening “despite” should happen with smaller probability, or later… but if we have X for millenia, even the “later” happens eventually.
In a similar way, I have seen people attributing to Christianity everything that happened in Europe since 0 AD. Is that fair or not? Sometimes we can use China as a control group. In case of patriarchy, we don’t have such “China”. (And no, very small indigenous tribes aren’t a good control group. There are differences in population size, access to resources, etc.)
They work as a control group if the lack of patriarchy contributed to these changes.