The Importance of Gender in the History of the United States

The Haudenosaunee were very much female-centered, mother-centered and matrilineal. This came as a huge surprise to settler colonialists when they arrived in the Americas. One of the colonial projects in the United States was to civilise women into patriarchy. There are matroninial societies across Asia, across a vast belt of Africa and of course the Americas. The fact that it is so common is actually a product of colonialism itself.