Paper long abstract:

This paper will outline the latest research on gender in the Mongol Empire, particularly the division of labor between women and men that undergirded daily life, society and the Mongol conquests. It will then note several arenas in which we must revise our understanding of Mongol history based on this new research. One such arena is politics, which were significantly shaped by women and their strategic political marriages, women acting as political advisors, and women working as regents. Another important arena in need of revision is the question of succession, where the identity of a man's mother, not just his father, determined how, or whether, he could succeed to a throne. The third arena is Chinggis Khan's atomized army, which coexisted alongside a cadre of special in-law forces, the Chinggisid confederation, that were controlled by the imperial sons-in-law or husbands of Chinggis Khan's five senior daughters from his wife Börte