These hotep n#ggas need to stop with that "Ancient Africa was matriarchal." Stop lying and stop spreading mistruths.
Africa was matrilineal. This means that the bloodline passed through the mother, but the woman did not rule society above the man. Africa is and was patriarchal in terms of leadership-politically and socially. However, unlike Europeans, the woman was never relegated to second class citizenship.
In Europe, a woman was seen as properpty. A man could literally trade his wife like a commodity. A man could kill his wife with impunity. She had no rights except those afforded to her by her husband. But in society, she was a ward of her husband.
In Africa, a woman had human rights independent of her husband. She was seen as an equal...not better than, no worse than...but part of the whole. In fact, a king could not be a king without a queen in African tradition because the male and the female together symbolized balance. A woman was an independent being with rights within African society.
In Africa, women were respected enough that mistreatment of a woman was a crime. In Europe, there was no such thing as a crime against a woman because she was property. This only strengthens the idea that black feminism is misguided because black women have never had the same fight as white women.
But none of that means that Africa was matriarchal and/or that women ruled societies en masse. Historically, African women tended to dominate the market places. Not the community, tribe or country. Political leadership was with men.
Hotep n#ggas like to take the handful of black female leaders that they learned about and take them out of context to the point of espousing the ideals of matriarchy. What they leave out is the fact that those women tended to take on leadership as a last resort since the men had been depleted due to war and/or colonial sabotage. They were not the original leaders, they were interim leaders, forced to step up.
That's not to take away from what many of them did. In fact, some did better than the men they were forced to replace. Some showed more courage and more commitment to being African than their male counterparts. Some deserve the same reverence that any great leader, male or female, would be given.
But none of this proves matriarchy in African societies. So, I'm sorry ladies, simps and cupcakes. But black men were ruling and controlling the household for centuries before any idea of a word called "patriarchy."
Peace