The thing is that if you want to compare “few geniuses earlier”, for that comparison to be of use, the living conditions of men and women would need to be the same. Back then. That or create some kind of methodology to measure the differences due to laws and living conditions. And “earlier” women were property (I’m not using the word “cattle” because is charged, but some philosophers consider women to be barely above animals). Women simply weren’t allowed to live on their own. Not as hermits, not as anything.

So maybe you need to turn around the question. Maybe is not about why those men existed, but why those women didn’t or there was fewer than men.

In fact, since many societies had slaves, it is worth to wonder if there would also be more men who might have been “geniuses” but weren’t given the chance. Meanwhile, many of those “geniuses”, like for example greeks, were able to do all those discoveries because they had slaves (both sexes) that worked for them.

We do know that there were women like Hypathia of Alexandria who were also geniuses. So given the chance, women were able to make discoveries. She was from Egypt, so chances are that she had slaves. I mean, it is not specifically said, but in her society slaves were common.

And Hypathia had disciples, many of them men. So it begs the question, how many men (and women) never become philosophers or discover things because the women who could have been their mentor were never given the chance to be a genius?

I mean, if you read Aristotle on women, it is clear that he never considered women worthy. If it had been to him, Hypathia would have been subjected to men and only allowed to be a wife and a mother.

So for me you need to turn the question around, how many people never become (was recognized) a genius because they were women or slaves?

The fact that you think it is about men “having a potential” that women did not and not about having the opportunity to develop the potential is why our points of view are so different. You come from a very different premise. And historical facts point to some people never having a chance of doing things. And yes, patriarchy that deemed women as “ subject to men, but as higher than slaves, and lacking authority” is the reason we don’t have more Hypathias. And since slavery was common, it is also the reason why we don’t have more geniuses among the poor. Using the greeks example, not surprisingly, there was no natural philosophers among the slaves. Were slaves dumb or were they forced to work and didn’t have time to think?

So did the men really excel? Some of them were free, while women didn’t. (Some) men were given political rights, while women didn’t. Women went through letal pregnancies and births, men didn’t… And here I’m going to point out that whenever you give women the right to decide about their reproduction, the number of children they have is reduced.

And if we have to take a lesson from what Amartya Sen proved, is that whenever we use women’s potential, families benefit. We are wasting potential just to protect some people’s ego. And that wasted potential means that families live worse.

I’m talking about men. The thing is that I’m pointing out that men did had advantages that women didn’t. To compare them in historical settings, you need to take into account that historically women were considered property and weren’t allowed to do many things. Literacy is just a part of it and maybe with the example of slaves you’ll understand better what I’m saying.

If it was true that we did have different potential, allowing women to go to university wouldn’t have has such big change in society. But in a few decades, you have half the people who go to university being women. Few decades is not enough for evolution. So it is clear it is about society. And while now we hear the mantra that “men are better at tech”, the fact is that earlier programmers were women (see ENIAC). If it wasn’t about patriarchy (society) feminist would never exist at all. Because it won’t be in our nature.

So take any of those “geniuses that lived alone”, would they have been able to do anything if they have been considered property and made to work for someone else instead? If they have been locked to “preserve the honor of the family” (This is a classic for women). Denied literacy because “they shouldn’t be bothered by complex thoughts”? And if we want to be completely fair, not a single one of them would even exist without a woman who gave birth to them. Maybe raise them when they were children. Not even the hermits.

The fact is that women contributions have always take for granted, not really valued. Or only taken into account when women stop doing those things to complain about “how selfish we are” for not doing them.

Patriarchy has the premise that humanity has lost nothing by denying women human rights. But all the evidence points to just the opposite.