(although thank goodness for that part, no more creepers or catcalling)
There was a series on life in the Paleolithic ages that was mostly informative and occasionally surprising but they had one astonishingly stupid woman on who pointed out that women who survived childbirth lived on into old age, but all she could see them doing was baby sitting while the young women picked berries.
We know from watching orcas and close primate relatives that older females who aren't actively breeding take on leadership roles within their groups. An old woman past breeding would be a phenomenal storehouse of information on just about everything the group would need to survive, the knowledge passed down through generations. Observations of wild troupes of rhesus monkeys have shown that when males learn a new skill, they use it but don't share it. When a female learns a new skill, she teaches her offspring.
The patriarchal devaluation of women past breeding age has likely cost us a tremendous amount of basic human knowledge. It has certainly deprived us of leadership that thinks with their heads instead of their gonads.
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