"At the origins of male domination", undoing the myths of the cave

Dressed in an animal skin, club in one hand, the prehistoric man pulls his wife by the hair with the other, as they leave a cave. Thus, from yesterday to today, the relationships between Mr. and Mrs. "Cro-Magnon" are thought of, despite recent denials in gender research. This caricature owes its longevity, Claudine Cohen tells us, to the reputation of, among others, Darwin ( The Descent of Man, 1871) or Freud ( Totem and Taboo , 1913). Who were influenced by the gender norms of their time, even concerned with reinforcing them, by identifying in male domination an original invariant of human organization, therefore patriarchal in essence. Theories on the previous existence of a matriarchy, defended in particular by second-wave feminists, only temporarily challenged this postulate, due to lack of evidence.

The reference in the collective imagination remains the hunter-gatherer family: to man and his fo