The creation of patriarchy

Winner of the Joan Kelly Prize for the best work on women's history Women's history is increasingly viewed as essential to the emancipation of women. Until recently, history has been recorded by men, providing a distorted and incomplete, patriarchal version of events. By examining the historical process, Gerda Lerner discovers why and how women have been excluded from history-making, from its very beginnings in ancient Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC. Founded on men gaining control of women's sexuality, the establishment of patriarchy is fascinatingly recorded by Lerner, from the establishment of archaic states and law codes, to the degradation of the status of female godheads, and the association of female sexuality with sin and inferiority within Western civilization.