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I understand. For me it's a kind of interesting side question -- how one should define the word "history." Admittedly it's pretty much just a matter of semantics, but I still find it interesting. When I was in high school, I was taught the "written records" interpretation. In fact, the teacher told me that if written records existed but were not able to be translated, the society would be considered pre-historic. As mentioned above, it seems the trend is to take a broader view.
As far as the return of patriarchy goes, as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, my take is that it's another example of the fracturing of the culture. People are more willing to speak out if they know that they are not alone. The internet has allowed people to connect; share ideas; form bubbles; etc., with like-minded people.
For many years I have had a negative opinion about feminism, but being able to connect with similar-minded people has made me more confident in terms of speaking out and has also helped me to think about these issues in a way that is clearer, sharper, and easier to convey. For example, these days if I meet a feminist in real life who complains about the paucity of women in some elite role in society, I am ready to immediately ask her thoughts about the paucity of women losing their lives in mine cave-ins and such. An argument which is obvious in hindsight, but it really helps to have access to the internet to be able to formulate a response like that. And to know that I am not alone and not crazy for disliking feminism.
Multiply that by a few tens of thousands (or perhaps hundreds of thousands) and it definitely could feel like there are a lot of chuds coming out of the woodwork.
I was taught "records" at some point, but on the other hand it's been 40 years since my first trip to a "Museum of Natural History" where it was considered unremarkable that "Natural" basically meant "Pre-".
Well does the museum of natural history include exhibits on cave men and such? I don't know.
I guess what it comes down to is which academic departments are going to cover which subjects. Because at the end of the day, there are people out there who gather evidence about ancient people and try to figure out how those people lived, thought, organized their societies, perceived the world, etc. Would you call that "history"? "archeology"? "anthropology"?
I don't really know that either, but it does occur to me that there is a culture war angle here. In the sense that anthropology departments have been largely captured by the Left. So that a person who wants to seriously study ancient cultures might be better off doing so from within a different academic department.
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