Feminism in 2024 is corrupt. Between conservative TikTok wives , the repeal of reproductive rights in the US , and the juxtaposition of Oscar outrage with Palestinian women having C-sections without anesthesia , it feels like the feminist cause has lost focus.
Over the past century, feminist movements have made incredible strides in securing women’s right to vote, attend college, and hold leadership positions. In many places, women have the same rights as men on paper. But we are still far from liberation.
The global gender gap has narrowed by just 4% since 2006 (it has been stuck at around 70%). It will take 131 years to reach parity. One in three women still experiences some form of violence. I could go on, but progress has hit a dead end, and it’s clear why. We still live in a patriarchy.
Social media feminism has been fixated on giving women more equal rights and “empowerment” under the assumption that patriarchy will disappear once more of us become CEOs and executives. But it’s clear that in the “girlboss” feminist dream, there’s no escaping patriarchy. It turns out that we can’t overthrow patriarchy with patriarchy.
Modern feminism has been clear about one thing: we must dismantle the patriarchy. But it’s not clear what will take its place.
It is time for feminist thought to take a different approach. We need nothing less than a transformation of our social structures. It is time to focus on creating a matriarchy .
Matriarchy is patriarchy in reverse, but not in the way you think.
A patriarchy is a hierarchical social structure where men are in charge. The etymology of the word patriarchy (from the Greek PATÉR, “father” and ARKHÉ, “power”) literally means “domination of the fathers.”
If it had a shape, it would be a tangle with (rich, white, cis) men at the top and everyone else organized according to how much power their intersecting identities give them.
Organizing people in this way creates and normalizes relationships of domination. The higher you are on the triangle, the more power you have to dominate others. I learned from bell hooks that domination and love can never coexist. Domination only alienates and creates harm.
Seen this way, patriarchy has far more damaging effects than “just” subjugating women. Racism and capitalism could not have existed without patriarchy. A climate crisis resulting from the domination of nature would not exist without patriarchy.
Matriarchy is a social structure where women (especially mothers) are at the center. The idea that every human being comes from a mother is reflected in the cultural norms of a matriarchal society.
The Greek word - ARKHÉ also means “beginning,” as in “archeology” or “archetype.” Matriarchy literally translates to “in the beginning, the mothers.” In a matriarchy there is no top or hierarchy, there is only an inclusive circle where everyone’s needs are met.
Matriarchal Studies scholar Heide Goettner-Abendroth is a pioneer in looking at human history through a non-patriarchal lens. Her 2022 book, Past Matriarchal Societies and the Rise of Patriarchy , examines archaeological evidence to uncover the groundbreaking revelation that for most of history, humans lived in peaceful matriarchal societies.
Patriarchy is so deeply embedded in our systems that it can be impossible to imagine an alternative. A few years ago, I read Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens (Harari has a PhD in history), and was disappointed to find that he failed to explain why men were in charge in our society. At times, Harari’s hypotheses seemed to veer into dangerous naturalistic territory. News flash: humans are not apes. We do not have an innate drive to dominate others.
The hot take in Goettner-Abendroth's book is that patriarchy is not natural, it is just historical. It is just a legacy.
She goes even further against the patriarchal belief that men are the pioneers, the heroes, the inventors of humanity. She says that women were the driving force in the early evolution of humankind because they had the responsibility of raising children.
What we call the “hunter-gatherer” phase of human history, Goettner-Abendroth divides into a gradual evolution from gathering to hunting to fishing, which only progressed out of necessity.
Contrary to the myth of the “mighty hunter” who held regular meat feasts, Goettner-Abendroth infers that gathering provided most of a tribe’s nutrition, and mothers did most of this gathering.
Mothers were the first inventors, the first healers, the first developers of language, and the discoverers of fire.
Goettner-Abendroth finds that ancient human religions were based on birth/rebirth and vulva worship. Our ancestors had no way of linking sex to conception and believed that women’s bodies were gateways to the spiritual world. For this reason, these societies had no concept of fatherhood. Instead, men were brothers, free to be who they were, doing their part to support their kin. No exhaustive agenda of masculinity is required.
The culture of the warrior shepherds was like the Dothraki from Game of Thrones
The violent, dominant and mobile nature of these cultures meant that peaceful matriarchal communities stood very little chance against them.
When I started Chicks For Climate (now Chix) , I wanted to bring ecofeminism to a new generation through social media. In doing this work, I realized that the climate crisis could not be solved without a complete overhaul of our social structures.
Using the principles of ecofeminism, I wrote a manifesto on how to create a better society, identifying four properties of our current society that need to change if we are to survive on the planet.
- Balanced economic reciprocity without accumulation through a creative economy.
- Matrilineal kinship and gender equality. In other words, where the mother is the center of the family and society, and each person we interact with is equal to a sibling.
- An egalitarian society of consensus where everyone recognizes that we share interests, so we make decisions unanimously. This contrasts sharply with the division and damaging conflict that defines patriarchal societies.
- A culture that recognizes the sacredness of life.
Patriarchy does a great job of disconnecting us from each other and from the sacredness of life itself. It’s about giving as little as possible and getting as much in return. But this is inconsistent with the reciprocal laws inherent in nature.
Miki Kashtan, the founder of the Global Liberation Nonviolent Community , wrote in a recent article that patriarchy is characterized by a “loss of trust in the flow of life.” We have now reached a point where we are so disconnected from the flow of life that we are destroying the only life we know exists.
Matriarchy, on the other hand, is about giving as much as possible and being grateful for receiving as much in return. The climate crisis would never have happened if we approached nature with this mindset. A transition to matriarchy would ensure not only joy and liberation, but also a restoration of trust in the flow of life.
So how do we start?
Genevieve Vaughan, a feminist researcher whose work focuses on the gift economy, says women must lead this transition.
Through motherhood and domestic work, women have been providing free labor to our society for centuries. Women and mothers understand what it means to pay close attention to the needs of others, otherwise the human race would not have survived.
Vaughan says: “Men have been taught that they are something different, that they have a masculinity agenda of dominance and competition, and our institutions and economy have been built on that lie.”
A matriarchal society can look whatever we want it to look like, as long as it meets the four conditions of reciprocity, community, love, and regeneration.
Instead of scarcity for the many and abundance for the few, we can have abundance for all. We can stop the human impulses toward domination and exploitation, ensuring that everyone can have their needs met. We can slowly replace the transactional exchange economy with a creative economy. We can give leadership to councils of elder women. We can move away from hierarchical nuclear families and toward mother-centered communities where everyone participates in raising children. We can replace violence with love and healing. We can breathe clean air again. We can rest .
There is no better time to start thinking about social transformation of this magnitude than now. Almost half of the world’s population has a smartphone, and they spend more than 3 hours a day on it. Ideas can spread incredibly quickly, and when they do, we have the technology to make rapid, large-scale changes.
The feminist cause so far has focused on giving women the power and authority to solve their own problems. But by creating a matriarchy, the structures that sustain power and authority fade into irrelevance.
Despite all the emphasis on “winning,” no one really wins in a patriarchy. Men are taught to disconnect from their emotions, which creates deep pain. Even the ultra-rich, who enjoy boundless luxury, are cut off from the joy of reciprocity and loving community. This is a tragedy and unenviable.
The reality is that patriarchy does not allow anyone to live in liberation.
It is only through a matriarchy that we can live in true equality. It is time for feminists to name the society we want. It is a matriarchy. Not “women rule,” but “in the beginning, mothers.”
A loving, regenerative, reciprocal, community-based society is possible and within our reach. Embracing this possibility is a huge step towards resisting patriarchy and its myth of inevitability. If we can unite the power of modern technology with the egalitarian values of matriarchy, there will be centuries of peace and joy on this planet.
This article by Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth explaining how we can make matriarchy a reality reads like a kind of manual for matriarchy.
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Translated by PEITA team. Read the original text " The Next Phase of Feminism is Matriarchy " by Nergiz de Baere.
