The author presents a conceptual framework for studying social systems with particular attention to how a society constructs roles and relations between the female and male halves of humanity.

The book is now in 26 foreign editions, including most European languages as well as Chinese, Japanese, Urdu, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, and Turkish.

In contrast to earlier studies of society, this method concerns what kinds of social systems support the human capacity for consciousness, caring, and creativity, or conversely for insensitivity, cruelty, and destructiveness.

[2] Drawing from a trans-disciplinary database, it applies this approach to a wide-ranging exploration of how humans think, feel, and behave individually and in groups.

It comprises an authoritarian structure in both family and state or tribe, rigid male dominance, and a high degree of abuse and violence.

It draws from many sources, including the study of myth and linguistics as well as archeological findings by the Indo-Europeanists J. P. Mallory[6] and Marija Gimbutas[7] and archeologists such as James Mellaart,[8] Alexander Marshack,[9] Andre Leroi-Gourhan,[10] and Nikolas Platon.

This gender partnership was a core component of a more egalitarian, peaceful, and matrifocal culture with a focus on life-giving, centering on nurture.

Later, culture skewed towards Patriarchy during a chaotic time of upheaval related to climate change and incursions of warlike, nomadic tribes.

She further makes it clear the point is not returning to any "utopia" but rather using what we learn from our past to move forward to a more equitable and sustainable future.

Hodder confirms gender equity as a key part of a more partnership-oriented social configuration in this generally equitable early farming site where there are no signs of destruction through warfare for over 1,000 years.

[14] In this 2004 Scientific American article Hodder writes— Even analyses of isotopes in bones give no indication of divergence in lifestyle translating into differences in status and power between women and men... [which points to] a society in which sex is relatively unimportant in assigning social roles, with neither burials nor space in houses suggesting gender inequality.Data from other world regions also supports the thesis of an earlier partnership direction.