for hundreds of thousands of years having your tribe represented by a confident male (selected from the majority of the tribe) was beneficial (at least we can conclude that now based on the survivor bias principle) We still have those cave man instincts with us to a high degree. The point of civilization development is to reign in cave man instincts inside and among us. Seems that it takes time.
Designated leaders probably didn't become the norm until about 4000 bc when early civilizations arose.
Another interesting tidbit noted by many anthropologists is that boasting is strictly forbidden. E.g if a tribesman catches a big prey, he must be humble and can not brag about how good of a hunter he is. It is different from the Western World, in which bragging is expected and necessary for leaders (case in point: Trump).
Are you saying that this applies to every tribe in the world? Because if so, I don't buy it. It's too far fetched that every tribe in the world except everyone who advanced past the hunter gatherer stage would share this cultural trait. Aside from it being unreasonable that all tribes would share this trait, it would also seem to imply that modest people cannot advance to the modern age, which is also difficult to swallow.
I don't think other primitive peoples have designated leadership roles either, like we do, but I'm not sure.
Recent? Even gorilla have males bigger (and thus leading the pack) than females and so far prehistoric humans are known to have been that way too.
It is exactly the rise of civilization(agriculture, technology, complex social structure, etc) which allowed for situations with female leadership.
If you're really interested, look up "Sex at Dawn"
The idea of tribes controlled by women just never happened; not once. It's wishful revisionism motivated by modern politics.
Pinker discusses this a bit in this speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw
And of course other have noted the male dominance in pretty much all the similar primate species. Human are brute animals, nothing more.
And no, just because (pre)historically it was this way doesn't mean I'm saying it ought to be this way everywhere and forever. Natural != ideal.
Some warrior, sitting on a iron throne and passing down judgment from high in one the houses, or is it the old women of the village who carries the memories of who did whom a favor and is responsible for the community threads that binds the families together. Who has the power to make the decision?
if recent thousand of years of history is any guidance - the warrior on the throne will be asked to punish the witch[es] (some of those old women) for the curse that caused the animal to die, and the property of those witches would be shared between the warrior and the family of the reporter.
Its kind of telling if current view of history is that all elder women was hunted down and killed as witches under a single religion.
Women in Pictish society were regarded as the equal of men and succession in leadership (later kingship) was matrilineal (through the mother's side), with the reigning chief succeeded by either his brother or perhaps a nephew but not through patrilineal succession of father to son. [0]