Most pre-historic societies revered women. Perhaps even placed them on a pedestal of divinity, regarding them as more goddess than human... We have vague material evidence of this, but the real proof is in our hearts: to a child there is only one true God, Mother. Without an authority to tell us otherwise our mothers are our Creators and our saviours. Ancient African/Eurasian pastoral societies' archeological remains seem to show a history of reverence for the feminine.

...but they all failed and died out. I would guess because their idealism strayed too far from a perspective that allowed human beings to function and prosper in any but the most idyllic circumstances. In that time of scientific ignorance and superstition the female had all the power. Women were the divine mothers, men were just mortals, (remember the earliest societies did not even know that children had fathers!)

This could've played out a number of ways but pathogen is a likely deterrent, as well as competition from other tribes. War and disease were problems the goddess tribes would not weather.

However, their successors would realize the need to have a place for men in leadership roles and that the only way to keep them invested in the family was to put them "in charge" of it.

People see the hijab and think that muslim men are "oppressing women," but its much more than that... Women choose to follow that tradition and to pass it on to their children. They could choose to leave or resist but the arrangement profits them and so it stays... But why have a hijab in the first place? It couldn't be because men don't want women's faces to be seen. Men want to see women's faces, men want other men to be jealous of how beautiful their wives might be... but elderly married women do not. Older women don't want young vivacious women dragging men around by their erections and then rummaging their pockets when they pass out drunk... The hijab and rigid traditions, regardless of who "appears" to be in charge, are there to protect the married women and maintain the stability of the household.

Young women showing skin can and do run weak men into ruin: just look at tinder and the webcam girls. Women using dozens of men. Getting them to hand over thousands of dollars just to aknowledge their existence. Wives and mothers savings go to porn or prostitutes if women are allowed to "run things" and so because this has all happened many times before. Many societies decided that in order to prevent specific women from constantly exploiting men for their own gain, (which put many other women at a disadvantage,) that it might be better if women were slightly limited, and if men were offered some kind of incentive to basically give up a life and freedom for the sake of a family.

How do you maintain a seemingly backwards stone age power structure for thousands of years into the age of global telecommunications? Easy. You hide it behind a ridiculous beard.

Now women want to be both visibly in charge and the power behind the throne?

Surely nothing bad could happen, lol!

Oh, wait... Consumption based collapse of the global ecosystem and the complete breakdown of the traditional family structure might be currently happening right now, and the solution feminism offers is that men take all the blame and let women "have a turn at the wheel," when they've been backseat driving us all towards the precipice like Thelma & Louise since the stone age...