It is a truism to say that the status of women amongst most societies in history was subordinate to that of men. Choose three of the societies from the list here and compare their relative place (legal, social, economic, etc.) to each other. What do the variations say about the societies that made these differences? Ancient Egypt, Han China, the Roman Empire, the Umayyad and Abassid Caliphates, the Mongol Empire, Mayan Mesoamerica, the Empires of Ghana and Mali. What do they collectively tell us about the status and agency of women in the pre-modern world?.