… a flexible gender system … meant … certain women could occupy roles and positions usually monopolized by men, and thereby exercise considerable pow… - Ifi Amadiume

She is said to have had about 24 wives… the qualities attributed to her were hard work and perseverance. She was … a clever woman, who knew how to utilize her money.

Man seems to have wanted… to give the universe his own gender…anything believed to have value belongs to men and is marked by their gender…he gives his own gender to God, to the sun.

“Since women were basically seen as producers, the principals of control and protection applied to them throughout their productive period, whether as daughters, wives, or mothers. It is said when a woman outgrows the question, 'whose daughter is she?' people then ask, 'whose wife is she?' Only as matrons were women no longer valued in their sexual or reproductive capacity; matrons were, therefore, beyond control.