was the Danish economist Ester Boserup who first came up with the plough hypothesis: that societies that had historically used the plough would be less gender equal than those that hadn’t. The theory is based on the relative female-friendliness of shifting agriculture (which is done using handheld tools like hoes or digging sticks) versus plough agriculture (usually driven by a powerful animal like a horse or an ox), the idea being that the former is more accessible to women.
