The large-scale transformations of societies in the Holocene deeply changed social structures, leading to larger, more hierarchical societies. It is now clear that gender inequalities rose in this context; however, explanations for their evolution often rely on divergent definitions (e.g., division of labor, access to power, sexual freedom, or ideology), and use different proxies (e.g., residence patterns or sexual size dimorphism). To understand the causes of gender inequalities, we first need a clearer picture of what they actually mean across different cultures, i.e., how different these dimensions and proxies relate to one another.

In this talk, Léo Delalandre presents a reanalysis of a cross-cultural dataset that includes 52 gender-related variables across 93 pre-industrial societies. He addresses two main questions: (i) How does women’s status vary across these measures? and (ii) Which existing hypotheses about the evolution of gender domination find empirical support in the data?

Please note that this is an internal talk. If you want to participate, write an email to .