Matriarchy is not women exercising the kind of power that men have in patriarchy. Matriarchy enacts another kind of power entirely, one that the modern mind cannot easily recognize.
I’d like to offer some thoughts about the word “matriarchy”, which in my humble estimation, is an example, itself, of how patriarchy insidiously usurps our consciousness. The suffix “-archy” relates it to "hierarchy," a fully patriarchal construct based on a vertical path to power, competition, separation and the win/lose paradigm, and which is antithetical to the essential Feminine. So for some decades now I have preferred the term “matrifocal”, which, I feel, rotates the vertical axis of hierarchy to a horizontal axis of a feminine inclusivity which places compromise over competition, appreciation over analysis, nurturance over criticism and nature over technology.
And for what its worth, from my perspective, the very loud screams we are now hearing from the toxic patriarchy are not victory cries, but death throes. The pendulum has begun its return.
Love that word: matrifocal. Words cast spells, so we must use great caution with language. I have been cleaning up my thoughts and actions for decades, but only over the past few years have I realized I have been neglecting the creative power of my words. No more.
Also the Cherokee use the term Matrilineal to denote the 7 generations before and 7 generations after that are meant to be interwoven to all our considerations, decisions and actions in order to continue to birth a thriving reality.
I've thought all property should be matrilineal. It keeps every child with a roof over their head and solves the 'bastard problem' that children had to be recognized by the father as legitimate in order to be due any obligation. Everyone knows who their mother is.
You’re right that the suffix of the word matriarchy is related to patriarchy and hierarchy but the origin of the suffix whispers something different that what you propose here.
“Archy” comes from Arche - the Greek word with primary senses "beginning", "origin" or "source of action", and later "first principle" or "element". The first principle or element corresponds to the "ultimate underlying substance" and "ultimate undemonstrable principle". In the philosophical language of the archaic period, arche designates the source, origin or root of things that exist. In ancient Greek philosophy, Aristotle foregrounded the meaning of arche as the element or principle of a thing, which although undemonstrable and intangible in itself, provides the conditions of the possibility of that thing. (Wikipedia)
What mystery might be birthed when “mother - Matri” and “source or element of something - Arche” are brought together in language?
Images of the “keystone” which bring in to form an arch dance through my mind.
"What mystery might be birthed when “mother - Matri” and “source or element of something - Arche” are brought together in language?"
- I love that! And I hope we find our way back to those concepts….
Meanwhile, in standard usage, many of the words which end in “-archy” (patriarchy, hierarchy, oligarchy, monarchy, etc) have more of the flavor of “power over” others (in contrast to the more feminine/right brain trait of empowering others.)
Of course there is also gynarchy — women in power — and that concept feels pretty attractive to me in this current environment! ;-) And that may be where the pendulum swings to, before it centers itself...
I love the poetry of your analysis, and you are obviously very knowledgable about words and etymology. However the sources I used for my book's first chapter, on the emergence of democracy in ancient Greece, put hierarchy as 'the inheritance order of the archons' who were the rulers. So patriarchy would be father-rulers and matriarchy mother-rulers.
I hope, though, that we move from archy to arche. I also talk in my book about the eco-nomos, or set of rules, and the eco-logos, word, meaning, purpose, and how the economos should serve the ecologos, not the other way around. I think it was a quote from Susan George, the British economist. In any case, thought you might like it as a fellow etymology freak ;-)
I loved this also. For some reason I woke up hungry for a message from Charles, feeling that my recent fare has been lacking some nutritional nuance. This didn't disappoint!
I was also thinking about a new episode on my YT, and the playlist that has the least is "Where Are the Women?" My focus is on designing a feminine economy and spirituality, that puts children at the center. Yet finding any examples or discussion to build on has been hard. As Charles points out, feminism is more about 'honorary men' (a phrase I hadn't heard from UklG, although she's my ult bias, as they say in K-Pop).
And my book makes exactly the point you are! I start 3500 yr ago with the archons or rulers, and look at hierarchy as the inheritance order, in which patriarchy is assumed. One of my episodes on Vandana Shiva is called 'Patriarchal Pyramid or Matriarchal Matrix?' But I now see I've put the pyramid into the matrix with matriarch!
The episode I'm thinking about is on Davids Graeber & Wengrow's Dawn of Everything, to be titled "When Parents Ran the World," about the cooperative indigenous societies that have been the norm throughout the world for millennia. They call these 'Spheres of Influence' rather than using control-words for groups of people. As Kandy says, words matter.
It's not just women but mothers that we need to empower. The picture of the young woman and old man also rubs me the wrong way--the fetishization of youth, especially in women, is the patriarchy again.
Thanks for raising the question and adding to my vocabulary!
Thanks, Maya! I just finished a shrine-making class designed to energetically bring in more of the feminine ... trying to fight toxic patriarchy with their own weapons only creates more of it, like Mickey and the brooms in Fantasia, LOL!--so this workshop was about "craftivism" -- a deep dive into goddess centered art and creativity in order to love the Feminine into her wo-manifestation ;-)
So beautifully said and so necessarily observed. This one brought tears. To be in service to the feminine is to be in service to life itself. May I, and my brother kings, commit to living in sacred service to worthy and powerful queens... whatever form that may take in this life. Feels just right. With gratitude. 🙏.
“women join the system that has oppressed them and adopt its values and its blindness”
Ummm, yes. It took me a while to see this as I was one of these. It was necessary to breach the barricades - let’s not forget how recently whole swathes of endeavor were closed to us - but now we must examine where that has brought us. It isn’t a feminine ways of being that are celebrated in the present era. Rewards come to those in female bodies who perform masculine roles. Furthermore, It seems to me that those in power who reject the divine feminine are driven to control her - Mother Nature herself as the ultimate prize.
Major problems have erupted in our culture because men have lost their place and their role as head of the family, as fathers, as the main provider to their family. Women have been forced into, or adopted, roles that are not entirely comfortable for them. By doing so they have neglected, or denied, their biological role as mothers and nurturers.
In the end, the children suffer and the culture dies.
You say mothers who stay home and raise their children need to be financially compensated. You believe this will give them status and self respect and satisfaction. I seriously doubt this. It is not money, but the overall society who no longer values children, or the family. Children are no longer an economic benefit to a family and have become an economic drain. They are more like untrained pets than the future inheritors of the culture. This has been going on since the late 1950's and has accelerated.
That said, going back to the days when men were fully in charge, often ruled with an iron fist, and women and children were essentially treated like livestock, is hardly a solution either. Whether it is the 1950s, 1850s, or (pick your poison), let's NOT whitewash the patriarchal past as some sort of golden age.
Sheesh...good Lord. This was uncommon, not the norm, in Western cultures. It is still extant in Middle Eastern cultures. Pick your battles buddy. "Ajax the Great?"
"The Way We Never Were" by Stephanie Coontz will shatter any nostalgia about the 1950s (and 1850s, etc.) rather quickly IMHO. I guess we shall have to agree to disagree.
Ok, so maybe the iron fist (hostile sexism) had a velvet glove (benevolent sexism) over it. Granted. Gilded cages can seem so great at first. But that doesn't make historical pre-1960s Western patriarchy any less of a protection racket and Ponzi scheme than its Middle Eastern variant.
This was so refreshing to read--not least of all bc you wove in Fukuoka with childbirth. As someone who’s immersed in holistic birth and mothering, and also studied permaculture, I def see the parallels.
I also feel frustration, sometimes, that it seems in order to honor my femininity and approach the world from that perspective, there’s often little recognition (in the typical sense) for my contributions.
Also--in the last two years, there’s been something of a mass exodus from medical-model birth.
Homebirth stats (women seeking non-systemic birth) have risen from 1-2% to upwards of 10%. Unassisted birth, freebirth, is also growing in awareness and favor.
Women are awakening to our power and agency more than ever-- in part because of the appalling failures of the medical system regarding the mother/baby dyad, and undisturbed birth vs. intervention.
I believe we need a different kind of childbirth education, now--one that’s not centered on what to expect at the hospital, and also, not focused on “natural pain management”.
That’s why I teach from a feminine, intuitive perspective. I’ve been doing this for years, but it feels like the world is finally ripe and ready ❤️
Beautiful Charles. Thank you. This essay really comes into its own towards the end when you speak about the dynamic relationship between intact matriarchy and patriarchy. I wonder what you think about the shaman/artist/poet/witch archetype where a man or woman has internalised and sublimated both male and female archetypes. This leads to a process of internal cross pollination rather than sexed monopolies on, for example, the ethic of justice and the ethic care (the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ respectively. The artist or shaman can utilise the dual force of masculine and feminine to access divine truth and, in turn, create divine ideas, art, wisdom etc.
I have always longed for a society where individuals were allowed to gravitate towards becoming who they felt like being, instead of twisting ourselves in knots to conform or rebel against notions of femininity of masculinity, which seem inevitably to be boxes people get forced into in various times and geographies. If an individual man or woman *likes* the box (a woman wants to be a mother/caretaker, or a man wants to be a firefighter or military leader), then it seems "natural" to them. Otherwise, it's humiliating to be herded towards the boxes and shamed away from the "wrong box"
Even if interests or traits can be statistically demonstrated to be more common in males or females, the whole concept of gender is so obviously constructed by the culture and the time.
We can't get around the biological reality that men tend to be larger, stronger, and more aggressive. This means, to me, that men will always have more power unless they are constrained culturally from taking it. Other than that obvious biological reality, I would love it if we just kicked the whole "femininity/masculinity" discussion to the curb and respected everyone as a human being, let them choose their own interests, and fill whatever roles needed filling, without shame or so much status assigned, and went on our way.
Yes we need to think of masculinity and femininity as a continuum and not binary. We all have a mixture of traits of both genders. They should be supported in society.
My point is that the continuum is constructed. Yes, we have a mixture of traits of *how we have arbitrarily decided to define two genders*, out of the reality of two sexes. I know it is futile, but I don't believe that there is a gender continuum that means much. It is mostly a social construct that people are measured against and coerced into.
Absolutely. Unless categorization ends at the physical, we engage in ongoing games of musical-chairs-style female and male generalizations.
'Femininity' and 'masculinity' are concepts created by the patriarchy, for better or for worse, and they damage both men and women in different ways. This is an outdated and harmful practice to everyone. Time to let it go.
Where does woke culture fit into all this? The militant insistence on “safe spaces” where people are protected from so much as even hearing opinions that differ from their own? At first glance it appears to be compassionate, but as things have evolved it’s become clear that it’s infantilizing and promotes (perhaps even celebrates) mental illness, by which I mean an increasing emotional and mental fragility and an increasing need to attempt to control the external environment because of a lack of resilience in the internal environment. I see this reaching authoritarian levels now, where legitimate dissent on issues is no longer allowed (sometimes even by law, as in Canada). I have had this explained to me as “excess feminization” of society, but that doesn’t seem right to me at all, particularly because the policing of these boundaries can be so aggressive. How does this fit into the patriarchy/matriarchy discussion?
Anyone who calls that “excess feminization“ clearly doesn’t understand true femininity...!
Personally, I’ve come to see wokeness as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. An excuse to appear affirming and righteous, while enacting hatred and pettiness. It’s the ultimate enactment of “the emperor having no clothes”...because if you state things plainly, you’re condemned.
So in Charles's patriarchy/matriarchy discussion, where does it fall? Is this patriarchal oppression, another means of control which is masked (as you say) as affirming of persons? Or is this an example of something irrelevant to these categories?
I was in a permaculture class where the open minded people wanted to punish a neighbor for washing cars in the driveway. There is this tendency to force others to do what we think is right no matter what our beliefs are.
Patricia, I certainly contemplate this as well. To me, woke culture is an engineered distraction that turns people's minds into pretzels as truth becomes lies and lies become truth and the psyche is damaged. If we, as a society, cannot even talk about something as fundamental as what a biological woman is, then that society is, for lack of a better word, f**ked. There is nothing feminine about this. This is just straight up mind control.
Except that it appropriates an "ethics of care" as justification. And I think many people honestly see this type of accommodation as compassionate, and those opposed as hateful/bigoted/cruel.
Personally, I think the denial of reality is never compassionate, but the purported justification for it is in a "feminized" ethics of care as opposed to a "masculinized" ethics of justice.
Completely agree. Those who are still asleep may fall for this, but more and more people are seeing that the emperor has no clothes on. Someone may call me a bigot online, but if they came into my energy field, my loving and compassionate energy would leave them with no doubt about where I stand. Energy never lies.
I would say it is something like shadow femininity. It is the unhealthy pursuit of ostensibly feminine values, wholly corrupted by the masculine urge to dominate and control.
This resonates. It's like the shadow feminine and the shadow masculine combined. E.g. if the feminine value is nurturing, the shadow of that is infantilizing. That makes sense.
To my eye woke culture arose from a value system that wants to highlight and lift up the marginalized aspects of the culture. It’s powerful partly because there is a life-affirming sacred core in this impulse: Life favors diversity.
Woke culture is what happens when a marginalized group gets the ring of power. Media attention, political influence and ability to destroy (cancel culture, mass walk outs) for the first time. Even Frodo tried on the ring.
Of course the power ultimately twists the user and before you know it you’re walking out on Thanksgiving dinner and cancelling your family because they don’t tow the party line!
It’s also what happens when the matrix gets hold of anything good and grassroots. It juices it up, integrates and captures its energy and makes it part of the world destroying machine.
Eventually, though, if we see it for what it is, we come back home to earth and community. That’s where the work of the reunited masculine and famine become real and powerful again from what I can tell.
Those are powerful (forceful?) and important questions.
I hope Charles finds some time to address them.
If I were to hazard a quick guess, I'd say the root cause is the loss of meaningful identity for both the feminine and masculine aspects of the Great Disgendering.
To what extent this has been engineered/orchestrated is something I dwell on daily.
It's a generational thing that hit the college campuses like a tsunami about 10 years ago, just as the Zoomers were starting college. I mean, I know it comes out of cultural Marxism (which comes out of the faculty lounge) but it's a mystery to me why the Zoomers picked up on it. Are they really that fragile and infantile?
A German friend of mine came to the US to teach at university and experienced significant culture shock as he realized that US students cannot handle any criticism--even objective, academic critique. Even at the graduate level. We can't blame the generation--they didn't raise themselves. They are a product of society as a whole, which somehow engendered this. And it certainly didn't do them any favors, because it's not a happy or healthy way to be. (Of course, not blaming them doesn't mean excusing infantile behavior. We all still need to grow into mature human beings.)
Do you think being online and social media is a big part of this? Is there a statistician out there who can correlate this fragility with it? I was out of college before the Internet really took off. I cannot imagine being so emotionally and mentally fragile as to not be able to take criticism or understand that there are people who have beliefs and opinions that are different from mine.
Interesting thought. That would be a very complicated observational study because there are so many variables, and probably would not be very reliable in the end. I don't even think there is a validated instrument (questionnaire) to measure something like an inability to tolerate criticism or critique. There are for depression and anxiety, though, and those are highly correlated with social media use.
Dear dear Charles, I’d like to hug you! Please reassure your partner that I ‘m not trying here to « run off with you » but just to say hallelujah, you ‘get it!’ A man gets it!!! 😄
Seriously, thank you for your writings.🙏🏻 They’re inspirational in these dark times. And the latest Tolkien adaptation is a fitting and timely subject.
I do resonate so much with what you write, as a 70 year-old woman, a yoga teacher/meditator, and a partaker of indigenous ceremonies.
I live in Nice, France and if you ever were to come to France/Europe I would do my utmost to help fill a space for your talks. In fact, I’m to pass on a message from some French women friends to you. “Please June, ask him to translate all of his books and writings into French!”
Just in case you don’t have enough to do huh😄
Keep on keeping on Charles. You can’t know it but you’re helping me turn an important corner.
Good arrticle. the medical profession is entirely arrogant, belligerent. mervcenary and contolled by corrupt forces. Avoid the medical profession altogetuer whereer possible; they are complicit in the bioweapon Covid Srars and no longer a health profession. Paul Scott new zealand
I often wonder whether what we call deranged patriarchy is some other force entirely, perhaps not of this world, inhuman. What you describe here as the healthy, life-centered union of masculine and feminine might require rejecting entirely the militaristic, unfeeling, “goal-oriented”, and life-denying behavior we now call patriarchy and see as comfortable to men. Perhaps it is truly only comfortable to a force based on separation and domination that has created the reality we have accepted.
Such a fascinating topic...the force behind cultures deliberate push has always felt like invasive force, unnatural to Earth...Whether it be “archons” “wetiko” etc...it’s been entrained into the human subconscious for a long time...this aspect of the deep fundamental structure of society needs to be exposed past the patriarchal/matriarchal labels...
Lovely piece! And a sincere question for you, Charles:
Why a return to specifically matriarchy? Why not a balanced form of community and leadership with the healthy integration of masculine and feminine gifts and wisdom?
Even in the Tao there isn’t perfect balance. If there was nothing would exist. The movement comes when either the yin or yang leads by just a little bit. Then the spinning circle of dark and light appears.
Yes, in the pure light of the mind a balance. In lived reality, one always leads. Ideally by just a little bit!
I hear in Charles words an invitation to lean toward her. Toward earth. Toward life. Not to condemn the sun with its masculine penetration and power. But to say, no... she needs our love and care right now. I choose her. I do not negate my sovereignty as a king when I serve a queen. Nor do I negate my masculine when I express my feminine energy. The balance is the dance. The interplay. The invitation is to notice who is leading.
"Who is to know when they are to be used, how are they to know?"
Similar to the manhandling in ecology efforts where doing more causes more damage, the OB meddles where he should sit on his hands. The obstetrician feels useless without the tools of his trade though. When truly the skill is in watching and observing with a consciousness of trust and absolute faith in the process, but this is not taught in obstetrics.
Then Covid moved in, and even the crunchiest of home birth midwives abandon their trust of women's bodies and recommend (even push) the shot. I have yet to reconcile this and find it utterly troubling to find this in communities that seems to on one hand treasure health; the processes of the body and our rights of passage; and on the other hand advocate that the immune system cannot deal with a virus on it's own and illness should be escaped at all costs.
Absolutely stunning, thank you, Charles!
I’d like to offer some thoughts about the word “matriarchy”, which in my humble estimation, is an example, itself, of how patriarchy insidiously usurps our consciousness. The suffix “-archy” relates it to "hierarchy," a fully patriarchal construct based on a vertical path to power, competition, separation and the win/lose paradigm, and which is antithetical to the essential Feminine. So for some decades now I have preferred the term “matrifocal”, which, I feel, rotates the vertical axis of hierarchy to a horizontal axis of a feminine inclusivity which places compromise over competition, appreciation over analysis, nurturance over criticism and nature over technology.
And for what its worth, from my perspective, the very loud screams we are now hearing from the toxic patriarchy are not victory cries, but death throes. The pendulum has begun its return.
Love that word: matrifocal. Words cast spells, so we must use great caution with language. I have been cleaning up my thoughts and actions for decades, but only over the past few years have I realized I have been neglecting the creative power of my words. No more.
yes, Kandy, thanks, and I agree that words cast spells (I guess that's why they call it spelling!)
or matrixial - which brings up the notion of a matrix in which all have a place - a term from Bracha Ettinger
Also the Cherokee use the term Matrilineal to denote the 7 generations before and 7 generations after that are meant to be interwoven to all our considerations, decisions and actions in order to continue to birth a thriving reality.
I've thought all property should be matrilineal. It keeps every child with a roof over their head and solves the 'bastard problem' that children had to be recognized by the father as legitimate in order to be due any obligation. Everyone knows who their mother is.
You’re right that the suffix of the word matriarchy is related to patriarchy and hierarchy but the origin of the suffix whispers something different that what you propose here.
“Archy” comes from Arche - the Greek word with primary senses "beginning", "origin" or "source of action", and later "first principle" or "element". The first principle or element corresponds to the "ultimate underlying substance" and "ultimate undemonstrable principle". In the philosophical language of the archaic period, arche designates the source, origin or root of things that exist. In ancient Greek philosophy, Aristotle foregrounded the meaning of arche as the element or principle of a thing, which although undemonstrable and intangible in itself, provides the conditions of the possibility of that thing. (Wikipedia)
What mystery might be birthed when “mother - Matri” and “source or element of something - Arche” are brought together in language?
Images of the “keystone” which bring in to form an arch dance through my mind.
"What mystery might be birthed when “mother - Matri” and “source or element of something - Arche” are brought together in language?"
- I love that! And I hope we find our way back to those concepts….
Meanwhile, in standard usage, many of the words which end in “-archy” (patriarchy, hierarchy, oligarchy, monarchy, etc) have more of the flavor of “power over” others (in contrast to the more feminine/right brain trait of empowering others.)
Of course there is also gynarchy — women in power — and that concept feels pretty attractive to me in this current environment! ;-) And that may be where the pendulum swings to, before it centers itself...
I love the poetry of your analysis, and you are obviously very knowledgable about words and etymology. However the sources I used for my book's first chapter, on the emergence of democracy in ancient Greece, put hierarchy as 'the inheritance order of the archons' who were the rulers. So patriarchy would be father-rulers and matriarchy mother-rulers.
I hope, though, that we move from archy to arche. I also talk in my book about the eco-nomos, or set of rules, and the eco-logos, word, meaning, purpose, and how the economos should serve the ecologos, not the other way around. I think it was a quote from Susan George, the British economist. In any case, thought you might like it as a fellow etymology freak ;-)
I loved this also. For some reason I woke up hungry for a message from Charles, feeling that my recent fare has been lacking some nutritional nuance. This didn't disappoint!
I was also thinking about a new episode on my YT, and the playlist that has the least is "Where Are the Women?" My focus is on designing a feminine economy and spirituality, that puts children at the center. Yet finding any examples or discussion to build on has been hard. As Charles points out, feminism is more about 'honorary men' (a phrase I hadn't heard from UklG, although she's my ult bias, as they say in K-Pop).
And my book makes exactly the point you are! I start 3500 yr ago with the archons or rulers, and look at hierarchy as the inheritance order, in which patriarchy is assumed. One of my episodes on Vandana Shiva is called 'Patriarchal Pyramid or Matriarchal Matrix?' But I now see I've put the pyramid into the matrix with matriarch!
The episode I'm thinking about is on Davids Graeber & Wengrow's Dawn of Everything, to be titled "When Parents Ran the World," about the cooperative indigenous societies that have been the norm throughout the world for millennia. They call these 'Spheres of Influence' rather than using control-words for groups of people. As Kandy says, words matter.
It's not just women but mothers that we need to empower. The picture of the young woman and old man also rubs me the wrong way--the fetishization of youth, especially in women, is the patriarchy again.
Thanks for raising the question and adding to my vocabulary!
Thank you for this small but femininely delightful observation.
Thanks, Maya! I just finished a shrine-making class designed to energetically bring in more of the feminine ... trying to fight toxic patriarchy with their own weapons only creates more of it, like Mickey and the brooms in Fantasia, LOL!--so this workshop was about "craftivism" -- a deep dive into goddess centered art and creativity in order to love the Feminine into her wo-manifestation ;-)
Perfect.
Thanks, Amy!
So beautifully said and so necessarily observed. This one brought tears. To be in service to the feminine is to be in service to life itself. May I, and my brother kings, commit to living in sacred service to worthy and powerful queens... whatever form that may take in this life. Feels just right. With gratitude. 🙏.
“women join the system that has oppressed them and adopt its values and its blindness”
Ummm, yes. It took me a while to see this as I was one of these. It was necessary to breach the barricades - let’s not forget how recently whole swathes of endeavor were closed to us - but now we must examine where that has brought us. It isn’t a feminine ways of being that are celebrated in the present era. Rewards come to those in female bodies who perform masculine roles. Furthermore, It seems to me that those in power who reject the divine feminine are driven to control her - Mother Nature herself as the ultimate prize.
I agree with much of what you wrote.
Major problems have erupted in our culture because men have lost their place and their role as head of the family, as fathers, as the main provider to their family. Women have been forced into, or adopted, roles that are not entirely comfortable for them. By doing so they have neglected, or denied, their biological role as mothers and nurturers.
In the end, the children suffer and the culture dies.
You say mothers who stay home and raise their children need to be financially compensated. You believe this will give them status and self respect and satisfaction. I seriously doubt this. It is not money, but the overall society who no longer values children, or the family. Children are no longer an economic benefit to a family and have become an economic drain. They are more like untrained pets than the future inheritors of the culture. This has been going on since the late 1950's and has accelerated.
That said, going back to the days when men were fully in charge, often ruled with an iron fist, and women and children were essentially treated like livestock, is hardly a solution either. Whether it is the 1950s, 1850s, or (pick your poison), let's NOT whitewash the patriarchal past as some sort of golden age.
Sheesh...good Lord. This was uncommon, not the norm, in Western cultures. It is still extant in Middle Eastern cultures. Pick your battles buddy. "Ajax the Great?"
"The Way We Never Were" by Stephanie Coontz will shatter any nostalgia about the 1950s (and 1850s, etc.) rather quickly IMHO. I guess we shall have to agree to disagree.
Ok, so maybe the iron fist (hostile sexism) had a velvet glove (benevolent sexism) over it. Granted. Gilded cages can seem so great at first. But that doesn't make historical pre-1960s Western patriarchy any less of a protection racket and Ponzi scheme than its Middle Eastern variant.
I agree! Very well said.
I am honestly not surprised that a self-proclaimed radical feminist would eventually agree with you. Google "Horseshoe Theory".
This was so refreshing to read--not least of all bc you wove in Fukuoka with childbirth. As someone who’s immersed in holistic birth and mothering, and also studied permaculture, I def see the parallels.
I also feel frustration, sometimes, that it seems in order to honor my femininity and approach the world from that perspective, there’s often little recognition (in the typical sense) for my contributions.
Also--in the last two years, there’s been something of a mass exodus from medical-model birth.
Homebirth stats (women seeking non-systemic birth) have risen from 1-2% to upwards of 10%. Unassisted birth, freebirth, is also growing in awareness and favor.
Women are awakening to our power and agency more than ever-- in part because of the appalling failures of the medical system regarding the mother/baby dyad, and undisturbed birth vs. intervention.
I believe we need a different kind of childbirth education, now--one that’s not centered on what to expect at the hospital, and also, not focused on “natural pain management”.
That’s why I teach from a feminine, intuitive perspective. I’ve been doing this for years, but it feels like the world is finally ripe and ready ❤️
I found this in my inbox just as I was struggling to articulate to a friend why Galadriel in Rings of Power rubs me the wrong way. Perfectly put.
It's not even that I can't appreciate a badass woman fighter, a la Ripley in Alien. But THAT'S NOT WHO GALADRIEL IS.
More than ever, we need the archetype of the wise, strong matriarch-grandmother-goddess-queen.
Ripley rocked :) Holy shit, what a gal. That xenomorph was toast!
Beautiful Charles. Thank you. This essay really comes into its own towards the end when you speak about the dynamic relationship between intact matriarchy and patriarchy. I wonder what you think about the shaman/artist/poet/witch archetype where a man or woman has internalised and sublimated both male and female archetypes. This leads to a process of internal cross pollination rather than sexed monopolies on, for example, the ethic of justice and the ethic care (the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ respectively. The artist or shaman can utilise the dual force of masculine and feminine to access divine truth and, in turn, create divine ideas, art, wisdom etc.
I have always longed for a society where individuals were allowed to gravitate towards becoming who they felt like being, instead of twisting ourselves in knots to conform or rebel against notions of femininity of masculinity, which seem inevitably to be boxes people get forced into in various times and geographies. If an individual man or woman *likes* the box (a woman wants to be a mother/caretaker, or a man wants to be a firefighter or military leader), then it seems "natural" to them. Otherwise, it's humiliating to be herded towards the boxes and shamed away from the "wrong box"
Even if interests or traits can be statistically demonstrated to be more common in males or females, the whole concept of gender is so obviously constructed by the culture and the time.
We can't get around the biological reality that men tend to be larger, stronger, and more aggressive. This means, to me, that men will always have more power unless they are constrained culturally from taking it. Other than that obvious biological reality, I would love it if we just kicked the whole "femininity/masculinity" discussion to the curb and respected everyone as a human being, let them choose their own interests, and fill whatever roles needed filling, without shame or so much status assigned, and went on our way.
Yes we need to think of masculinity and femininity as a continuum and not binary. We all have a mixture of traits of both genders. They should be supported in society.
My point is that the continuum is constructed. Yes, we have a mixture of traits of *how we have arbitrarily decided to define two genders*, out of the reality of two sexes. I know it is futile, but I don't believe that there is a gender continuum that means much. It is mostly a social construct that people are measured against and coerced into.
Absolutely. Unless categorization ends at the physical, we engage in ongoing games of musical-chairs-style female and male generalizations.
'Femininity' and 'masculinity' are concepts created by the patriarchy, for better or for worse, and they damage both men and women in different ways. This is an outdated and harmful practice to everyone. Time to let it go.
Indeed, it is just as bad to try to shoehorn everyone into androgyny as it is to shoehorn everyone into rigid gender roles of any kind.
Where does woke culture fit into all this? The militant insistence on “safe spaces” where people are protected from so much as even hearing opinions that differ from their own? At first glance it appears to be compassionate, but as things have evolved it’s become clear that it’s infantilizing and promotes (perhaps even celebrates) mental illness, by which I mean an increasing emotional and mental fragility and an increasing need to attempt to control the external environment because of a lack of resilience in the internal environment. I see this reaching authoritarian levels now, where legitimate dissent on issues is no longer allowed (sometimes even by law, as in Canada). I have had this explained to me as “excess feminization” of society, but that doesn’t seem right to me at all, particularly because the policing of these boundaries can be so aggressive. How does this fit into the patriarchy/matriarchy discussion?
Anyone who calls that “excess feminization“ clearly doesn’t understand true femininity...!
Personally, I’ve come to see wokeness as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. An excuse to appear affirming and righteous, while enacting hatred and pettiness. It’s the ultimate enactment of “the emperor having no clothes”...because if you state things plainly, you’re condemned.
Oh my God, yes.
"The further society drifts from the truth, the more it condemns those who speak it". George Orwell (I think)
So in Charles's patriarchy/matriarchy discussion, where does it fall? Is this patriarchal oppression, another means of control which is masked (as you say) as affirming of persons? Or is this an example of something irrelevant to these categories?
Yea, I think it’s patriarchal - just, in this case, they’ve become what they claim to stand against and don’t seem to realize it.
I was in a permaculture class where the open minded people wanted to punish a neighbor for washing cars in the driveway. There is this tendency to force others to do what we think is right no matter what our beliefs are.
Yes, it is a very degenerate form of patriarchy (is there really any other kind, at least in practice?), and highly toxic and Orwellian.
Indeed, wokeism is a different beast altogether, and a highly toxic one. And Orwellian too.
Patricia, I certainly contemplate this as well. To me, woke culture is an engineered distraction that turns people's minds into pretzels as truth becomes lies and lies become truth and the psyche is damaged. If we, as a society, cannot even talk about something as fundamental as what a biological woman is, then that society is, for lack of a better word, f**ked. There is nothing feminine about this. This is just straight up mind control.
Except that it appropriates an "ethics of care" as justification. And I think many people honestly see this type of accommodation as compassionate, and those opposed as hateful/bigoted/cruel.
Personally, I think the denial of reality is never compassionate, but the purported justification for it is in a "feminized" ethics of care as opposed to a "masculinized" ethics of justice.
Completely agree. Those who are still asleep may fall for this, but more and more people are seeing that the emperor has no clothes on. Someone may call me a bigot online, but if they came into my energy field, my loving and compassionate energy would leave them with no doubt about where I stand. Energy never lies.
Wokeness, ironically enough, is essentially sleepwalking into tyranny.
I would say it is something like shadow femininity. It is the unhealthy pursuit of ostensibly feminine values, wholly corrupted by the masculine urge to dominate and control.
This resonates. It's like the shadow feminine and the shadow masculine combined. E.g. if the feminine value is nurturing, the shadow of that is infantilizing. That makes sense.
That is basically what neoliberalism is in a nutshell. Ditto for wokeism, safetyism, cancel culture, and stuff like that.
To my eye woke culture arose from a value system that wants to highlight and lift up the marginalized aspects of the culture. It’s powerful partly because there is a life-affirming sacred core in this impulse: Life favors diversity.
Woke culture is what happens when a marginalized group gets the ring of power. Media attention, political influence and ability to destroy (cancel culture, mass walk outs) for the first time. Even Frodo tried on the ring.
Of course the power ultimately twists the user and before you know it you’re walking out on Thanksgiving dinner and cancelling your family because they don’t tow the party line!
It’s also what happens when the matrix gets hold of anything good and grassroots. It juices it up, integrates and captures its energy and makes it part of the world destroying machine.
Eventually, though, if we see it for what it is, we come back home to earth and community. That’s where the work of the reunited masculine and famine become real and powerful again from what I can tell.
Those are powerful (forceful?) and important questions.
I hope Charles finds some time to address them.
If I were to hazard a quick guess, I'd say the root cause is the loss of meaningful identity for both the feminine and masculine aspects of the Great Disgendering.
To what extent this has been engineered/orchestrated is something I dwell on daily.
It certainly fills newspaper columns.
It's a generational thing that hit the college campuses like a tsunami about 10 years ago, just as the Zoomers were starting college. I mean, I know it comes out of cultural Marxism (which comes out of the faculty lounge) but it's a mystery to me why the Zoomers picked up on it. Are they really that fragile and infantile?
A German friend of mine came to the US to teach at university and experienced significant culture shock as he realized that US students cannot handle any criticism--even objective, academic critique. Even at the graduate level. We can't blame the generation--they didn't raise themselves. They are a product of society as a whole, which somehow engendered this. And it certainly didn't do them any favors, because it's not a happy or healthy way to be. (Of course, not blaming them doesn't mean excusing infantile behavior. We all still need to grow into mature human beings.)
Do you think being online and social media is a big part of this? Is there a statistician out there who can correlate this fragility with it? I was out of college before the Internet really took off. I cannot imagine being so emotionally and mentally fragile as to not be able to take criticism or understand that there are people who have beliefs and opinions that are different from mine.
Interesting thought. That would be a very complicated observational study because there are so many variables, and probably would not be very reliable in the end. I don't even think there is a validated instrument (questionnaire) to measure something like an inability to tolerate criticism or critique. There are for depression and anxiety, though, and those are highly correlated with social media use.
This is an honest question. I am genuinely trying to make sense of it.
Dear dear Charles, I’d like to hug you! Please reassure your partner that I ‘m not trying here to « run off with you » but just to say hallelujah, you ‘get it!’ A man gets it!!! 😄
Seriously, thank you for your writings.🙏🏻 They’re inspirational in these dark times. And the latest Tolkien adaptation is a fitting and timely subject.
I do resonate so much with what you write, as a 70 year-old woman, a yoga teacher/meditator, and a partaker of indigenous ceremonies.
I live in Nice, France and if you ever were to come to France/Europe I would do my utmost to help fill a space for your talks. In fact, I’m to pass on a message from some French women friends to you. “Please June, ask him to translate all of his books and writings into French!”
Just in case you don’t have enough to do huh😄
Keep on keeping on Charles. You can’t know it but you’re helping me turn an important corner.
Gratitude is flowing brother 🙏🏻 ❣️
I just requested books in French. How funny!
Good arrticle. the medical profession is entirely arrogant, belligerent. mervcenary and contolled by corrupt forces. Avoid the medical profession altogetuer whereer possible; they are complicit in the bioweapon Covid Srars and no longer a health profession. Paul Scott new zealand
This clarifies why I didn't really like Galadriel. She's icy steel, cutting through obstacles.
Matriarchy forms circles and webs of connections, like Grandmother Spider. It's about care more than power.
I often wonder whether what we call deranged patriarchy is some other force entirely, perhaps not of this world, inhuman. What you describe here as the healthy, life-centered union of masculine and feminine might require rejecting entirely the militaristic, unfeeling, “goal-oriented”, and life-denying behavior we now call patriarchy and see as comfortable to men. Perhaps it is truly only comfortable to a force based on separation and domination that has created the reality we have accepted.
Such a fascinating topic...the force behind cultures deliberate push has always felt like invasive force, unnatural to Earth...Whether it be “archons” “wetiko” etc...it’s been entrained into the human subconscious for a long time...this aspect of the deep fundamental structure of society needs to be exposed past the patriarchal/matriarchal labels...
Paul Levy and Jack D. Forbes would both agree.
What a breath of fresh air. You put words to my experience as a woman.
Lovely piece! And a sincere question for you, Charles:
Why a return to specifically matriarchy? Why not a balanced form of community and leadership with the healthy integration of masculine and feminine gifts and wisdom?
Thank you.
Even in the Tao there isn’t perfect balance. If there was nothing would exist. The movement comes when either the yin or yang leads by just a little bit. Then the spinning circle of dark and light appears.
Yes, in the pure light of the mind a balance. In lived reality, one always leads. Ideally by just a little bit!
I hear in Charles words an invitation to lean toward her. Toward earth. Toward life. Not to condemn the sun with its masculine penetration and power. But to say, no... she needs our love and care right now. I choose her. I do not negate my sovereignty as a king when I serve a queen. Nor do I negate my masculine when I express my feminine energy. The balance is the dance. The interplay. The invitation is to notice who is leading.
word
Amen.
Because the ever-vexing question of "how to stop men from taking over once again?" will otherwise loom large in a power vacuum.
"Who is to know when they are to be used, how are they to know?"
Similar to the manhandling in ecology efforts where doing more causes more damage, the OB meddles where he should sit on his hands. The obstetrician feels useless without the tools of his trade though. When truly the skill is in watching and observing with a consciousness of trust and absolute faith in the process, but this is not taught in obstetrics.
Then Covid moved in, and even the crunchiest of home birth midwives abandon their trust of women's bodies and recommend (even push) the shot. I have yet to reconcile this and find it utterly troubling to find this in communities that seems to on one hand treasure health; the processes of the body and our rights of passage; and on the other hand advocate that the immune system cannot deal with a virus on it's own and illness should be escaped at all costs.
BINGO