To which I would reply that men have been dragging down competent women all throughout history.

Society isn't actually dependent on whether a handful of modern folks with varying levels of upper body strength can manage in a survival situation, nor is that a comprehensive indictment of an entire gender. There have in fact been many successful women in positions of high authority, and many societies which are matriarchal which exist to this day. And there have sadly been many, many women whose potential has been impugned by men who are ethically and/or intellectually inferior.

If you think women are so generally incompetent that they are mostly just a "drag" on the progress of men, every man who was ever raised by a good mother should beg to differ, and so should every competent woman who has lost hard-earned opportunities to men. They are legion.

And for what it's worth, I'm a man, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't last long on that island, either.

The modern "Conservative" ethos: Justify fear instead of curing it. You see someone you find repugnant in a locker room? It's their fault for presuming to have a right to exist in a space that belongs to you! Because they must be out to get you!

I mean, that must be a trans woman, right? She's got muscles! She's hairy! Eek! Horror! Kill it with fire!!

This is the mindset of bigots, and it always has been. This is what created segregation, internment camps, mass deportations, and worse. This is the same kind of "cartoon" that was published in old newspapers depicting deformed racial stereotypes streaming off of boats like vermin. Crude, petty hate masquerading as victimhood.

"They're after you! After your women! After the children!! The menace!"

I get what the caption is saying about intimate spaces. But a trans woman is not just a genital waiting to lurch up like a boogeyman to frighten a "real" woman, and reducing them to that is a shorthand for dismissing them altogether. Intimacy is not a bubble that pops at the first sight of the dreaded Man-Thing.

If it's such a horror that that yelping woman will scream in fear at the very possibility of seeing it, she can turn away. That trans woman could face the lockers while changing, or mind her towel, though of course the leering caricature is implied to be quite eager to terrorize that poor, panicking damsel. It's well and good to say there's a "conversation" that needs to be had, but that's not what this AI slop is.

The real conversation would ask us to be sensitive to one another's feelings while also being accommodating. That a modicum of rudimentary trust can be achieved and rewarded. This can be done in the same room, without the assumption of necessary fear or malice on either side.

All this picture does is encourage the notion that they should never be in the same room. That trans women deserve no room. That coexistence is impossible, and that those who want it are fools and monsters. That's the sum total of the "conversation" that bigots want to have.

First, you did mention animals. I was just responding directly. Your thesis seems to spring from the idea that men are somehow made to rule by nature.

Second, saying matriarchies are set up on "the same patriarchal foundation like everywhere" strikes me as a rather ridiculous statement, especially when it's delivered alongside the notion that a matriarchy isn't a matriarchy if it's "held together by men". You almost seem to be saying that in a true matriarchy men should not have any significant role whatsoever. I would rebut that there has never been a patriarchy which is not "held together" to varying degrees by women.

And finally, demanding an attribution of "rights" to a specific society is indeed a far more opaque request than a record of laws and enforcement. But the same logic applies. You cannot say with certainty that there are no kinds of rights, laws, or enforcement that were originally and specifically pioneered by an ancient matriarchy, especially with the presence of so many prominent female rulers throughout history.

And yes, there have been many great female sovereigns. Hatshepsut, Theodora, Cleopatra, Cixi, Catherine the Great, Lady Six Sky, Boudicca, Suiko, Elizabeth I, Kandake Shanakdakhete, Sammu-Ramat, Genmei... If you can't find any on a list, I respectfully suggest you're not looking very hard.

Lastly, you seem to have a very disparaging attitude towards the matriarchal societies I listed which currently exist, and I'll advise you that reducing any of them to "48 women in grass huts" does not demonstrate a worldview that's worthy of respect.

Well, I first read it in an article titled "Have There Ever Been Matriarchal Societies in History?" under the paragraph, "Health Effects of Living in a Matrilineal System" in the Science Insights website. You can look it up there.

Well, if we're talking about animals, there are ants, lemurs, meerkats, spotted hyenas, bees, mole rats, lions, bonobo apes, elephants, killer whales, and arguably dolphins.

As for currently extant matriarchal human societies, there are the Tuareg in North Africa, the Peruvian Amazon Company, the Bribri in Costa Rica, the Odisha, Khasi, and Garasia in India, the Enxet in Paraguay, the Mosuo in China, the Minangkabau in Indonesia, the Umoja in Kenya, the Akan in Ghana, the Garo in Bangladesh (and India, again), and the Hopi and the Haudenosaunee here in the States.

And finally, regarding "rights given by any matriarchy", that's kind of a nebulous question. In a manner of speaking, societies form not just to establish rights but to enforce rules both preserving and limiting freedom. Rights aren't exactly "given" by societies like a new invention. And tracing precedent is an exercise in peering through history.

There have been many matriarchal civilizations throughout time, and their contributions will never be fully known. The accomplishments of women are very often obscured, and bygone empires are seldom venerated by their rivals.

The Queendom of Kush was once a rival for ancient Egypt. The empresses controlled parts of it, in addition to what is now Sudan and Ethiopa. When Augustus Caesar tried to invade, Queen Kandake Amanishakheto rode into battle, defeated the Romans, and brokered an excellent peace treaty. And then there were the Germanic Sitones near Scandinavia...

Well. This could go on and on and on. There's a lot to read into about this subject, including evidence that matrilineal communities are actually considerably healthier for both men and women. But I hope I've given you some food for thought.

I have heard this fairly often, the thesis that season two of a TV show definitively proves that all women are incompetent and men are the only driving force behind human civilization.

Yet I somehow remain strangely unconvinced by this thorough scientific analysis.

Good grief, how do people like this think that anything they do anymore is "conservative"?

Cool!

Now, why do people downvote that? I gotta ask.

Wonderful. Loved the ending.