I thought of that as well. It’d be interesting to go back to 1969, and participate in “Stonewall.” I was around then, but in the wrong city.
Now is best, but if otherwise forced to choose then I’d select born 1850, die 1930 in NYC or maybe Chicago. Wealthy daughter/wife/mother to captains of industry during the Industrial revolution.
London born 1785 die 1860 would be another choice. Regency London in my youth, old age spent at my country estate.Yes I read too many Gorgette Heyer novels, what of it?
There are other times that would be interesting; Rome 100 - 180 AD for example, but those are more of a “nice place to visit” than some place I’d want to actually live.
It’s hard not to romanticize the ideal of Sappho and her gathering of girlfriends in 7th-century BC Lesbos and to pine for such a lost golden age. But we know so little about those days—they were just emerging from the Greek Dark Ages—let alone know what social conditions would have been like for queer women. Actually, not a single biographical fact is known about Sappho except the century when she lived and that she wrote poetry. Reality check, many of Sappho’s surviving poems are about her girls getting married off to men.
Even if we grant that there was a pre-patriarchal (by which I assume you mean matriarchal) culture, it would exist before antibiotics, before indoor plumbing, before shotguns. Possibly before roofs.
On a permanent basis, I’m not budging from the present. Life without the internet would be hard.
But for one year, with the understanding that I would indeed be “comfortable” (not in a car crash, no terrible diseases, enough cash to be secure, etc.), I would love to hang out with the Beat Generation. I know they didn’t treat women very well, but it would be cool to be with Jack Kerouac et al during the events that inspired On the Road. So … 1947, bumming around the US with Neal Cassidy and Jack I guess.
I think this question is a lot more interesting if it is “If you had to live in a time other than now, and more than 150 years in the past, when would it be?”
Back in 1861 the world was a lot more advanced than it was in 200 AD but enough of the conveniences of modern life were absent that you might consider other time periods just because they would be more intrinsically interesting to you. Medical knowledge in 1861 was still pretty terrible so if you got sick you were still in a bad way.
Like all humans we want to be comfortable and healthy and thus the natural response to this question without different parameters is always “now, or really recently.”
I wouldn’t go back any further than in my lifetime. Probably no further back than 10 years or so. But not now. Let’s go back before the recession and buy stock in things that will do well enough that I’ll have more money when 2011 comes back around.
I’d like to have been part of the first generation of Paleoindians, expanding southward into the Americas after the migration from Asia.
Game was abundant and unafraid of humans. Territory was unlimited, with no previous inhabitants to defend it and keep out intruders. Life was an adventure. It was a hunter-gatherer’s wet dream.
Um.. just a question: do you think there might be some people for which that advice could not ever work?
Wrong assumption. Those who study or advocate alternatives to patriarchy do not use the term “matriarchy,” because it leads off in entirely the wrong direction. The point is to not have any group dominating over any other group. I follow Riane Eisler on this, who has written about the egalitarian structure of Minoan society (there was not a big gap between rich and poor); she wants to replace the “dominator society” with a “partnership society.”
And Minoan architecture did have indoor plumbing, not to speak of roofs.
imperial rome had bad surgical procedures. victorian london was crowded and polluted, the US roaring 20s had poor entertainment except for the very rich. not much action in switzerland and west germany from the 60s to the 70s.
i’ll take the US 1950s when suburbs were well-ordered without unrealistic association rules, cars were coming out in different colors but limited to three makes, the elk and moose hunting was still good, no crazy FDA and health rulings, disputes were still settled by either a handshake or a sucker punch.
Whenever I can have a holodeck and sex with a computer-generated being that is indistinguishable from real sex.
+tampons and toilets.
Sorry, but even the Romans ain’t got nothin’ on a full spa off your master bedroom.
Make me comfortable now, please 
She is interesting but hardly a archeaolgist. We know little of Ancient Minoan Culture. It’s true that some of the frescoes do lead some to think that Minos was fairly egalitarian for it’s time.
+1000 years in the future. Yeah, I’m willing to roll the dice.
(and if any nitpickers want to come along and say that the future isn’t technically part of history yet, suck it)
WTF? They had Ma Rainey then! You better not diss her. And she didn’t cater to the very rich but to the common people.
Not the frescoes. The city layout. The sizes of houses and how they were placed in relation to each other. The frescoes do suggest a much freer society for women, a much more equal status for women, than anything else between then and now.
Even my 106 year old grandmother says there was no such thing as “the good old days” She prefers having indoor toilets, air conditioning, refrigerators, and most of all, washing machines. She’s alive and fairly comfortable because of modern medicine. No, I’ll go with grandma and take the now.
But if I had to go to the past, more than 150 years, I’d like to see the US during the Revolution. Meeting, somehow, folks like Franklin, John Adams, and so on would be so cool. And to balance out John Adams I’d sure want to meet Abigail as well.