Lineages of the Feminine: An Outline of the History of Women

by Emmanuel Todd, Andrew Brown (Translator)

We are experiencing an anthropological revolution. We see it in the #MeToo movement, in the denunciation of femicide and in an increasingly vociferous critique of patriarchal domination. Why this sudden rise of an antagonistic conception of the relationship between men and women, at the very moment when progress is accelerating and when the goals of first- and second-wave feminism seem on the verge of being achieved?  In this book, the anthropologist and historian Emmanuel Todd, while not underestimating the importance of crucial inequalities that remain, argues that the emancipation of women has essentially already taken place but that it has given rise to new tensions and contradictions. As women gain more freedom, they also gain access to traditional male social economic anxiety, the disorientation of anomie, and individual and class resentment. But because they remain women, with the ability to bear children, their burden as human beings, although richer, is now more difficult to bear than that of men.  In order to understand our current condition, Todd retraces the evolution of the male/female relationship through the long history of the human species, from the emergence of Homo sapiens a hundred thousand years ago to the present. He also conducts a broad empirical study of the convergence between men and women today and of the differences that still separate them – in education, in employment and in relation to longevity, suicide and homicide, electoral behaviour and racism. He explores the relations between women’s liberation and other changes in contemporary societies such as the collapse of religion, the decline of industry, the decline of homophobia, the rise of bisexuality and the transgender phenomenon, and the decline in a sense of the collective life. And he shows how and why Western countries – and especially the Anglo-American world, Scandinavia and France – are, in their new feminist revolution, perhaps less universal than they think.

Genres: History

336 pages, Hardcover

Published September 6, 2023

About the author

Emmanuel Todd is a French historian, anthropologist, demographer, sociologist and political scientist at the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) in Paris. His research examines the different types of families worldwide and how there are matching beliefs, ideologies and political systems, and the historical events involving these things.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating read, containing already familiar ideas about the role of family structure and a general incursion into the latest developments regarding female emancipation. Like in his other works, Todd uses extensive statistical data, though not all of his claims are directly supported through empirical research. Since he again follows a holistic approach to his theories, one will read specific statements like Japan‘s appreciation of Germany during the Mejii Restauration being a result of similar family structures drawn from his general theory of family structures, a claim that needs more thorough examination, since other countries also served as a template for the nation’s industrialization. This is just a small example out of many which experts of the respective fields might find debatable. Unfortunately I‘m not an expert on recent archeology and anthropology and am therefore forced to believe his assesment of an original nuclear family and a division of labour among men and women. Though not all of his theories might turn out to be true, enough of his ideas, especially in the second part of the book offer unique ideas and explanations about the recent decades of emancipations. Though he mostly describes french society, his theories seem applicable for Germany or other western nations too, contrary to Todd I believe we are not too different from each other in these aspects. Especially interesting is his description of matridominance in higher education and the resulting ideological faultlines which are observable in our daily lives. The impact of the general female rise in education results in the dissapearence of homophobia and racism,yet also the rise of neoliberalism and the breakdown of collective action according to Todd. All in all one of the most fascinating books which I ever had the pleasure of reading, although I believe that many of my contemporary feminist friends will highly dislike elements of this book, since Todd gives men and women an inherent essence of traits which causes the mentioned division of labour and ideological priorities and preferences. The author himself makes clear, that he is very skeptical of these traits being biological in nature, although the timeframe of the existence of these traits among humans is so long that there is functionally no difference. There exists therefore a second reading of the book, mainly from a conservative or reactionary view where the advent of feminism is indeed connected to other „disliked“ phenomena like transsexuality or gay acceptance and maybe even the erosion of national cultures and nation states due to a priority shift in a newly matridominated ideological sphere. Feminism seems to indeed destroy society, at least a specific version of it. Todd himself is optimistic future developments and I‘d like to share this sentiment that we will find a viable way to live without antagonisms in the future. Whether one views the result of this book as the final liberation of women or the collapse of current societal foundations remains a matter of perspective. Everyone shoudl I agree though, that tremendous changes have happened and are still going to happen in the future.