Matriarchy – Page 3 – Feminism and Religion

Matriarchal Politics The Vision of an Egalitarian Society (Part 3): Global Structures by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

To solve global problems, these steps from below must nevertheless be supplemented with more comprehensive structures. These are not „above,“ as there is no „above“ in this sense in matriarchal societies; they are simple more comprehensive.

National states no longer fit the bill: they are too big for humane, transparent political processes. At the same time, they are too small to solve global problems that the current patriarchy creates and leaves behind for posterity; this is especially true regarding problems related to advanced destruction of the biosphere on earth. It is no longer possible for national governments, or even regional ones, to solve these problems. They affect all of humanity, so global strategies are needed to solve them.

No more national states

Existing national governments must be dissolved in two directions: on one hand, in the direction of the autonomous regions, which are the basis for life; on the other hand, in the direction of a global structure with a purely executive status which has no state power. Such a structure could be a Global Council, which will be formed by the two halves of a Women’s Global Council and a Men’s Global Council. Today, the U.N.O. tries to form such a global council, but because of its patriarchal structure which excludes the issues of women and of many peoples, and because of the power plays of the super-powers on this level, fails to fulfill its ideals. They just continue the patriarchal status quo.

New distribution of national wealth

An initial and fundamental challenge is therefore to dissolve the financial wealth of each national state, first to the regions, and in the regions to the communities. Of course, it does not mean that the money goes to individuals or patriarchal institutions, rather it is only distributed for matriarchal communities. Exactly half of this wealth, that is 50 %, must go to women and the other half, that is 50 %, must go to the men of the communities, and not more to the men, as it is common in patriarchy. In that way, each sex can develop their respective area of the society and region. As there is already a double-occupancy of every agency in a new matriarchal society, this can be independently accomplished by each sex.

However, this money is not a paying for motherhood and women’s work – which in fact cannot be paid –, but it belongs to them as half of humanity. It is their modest share for all what women had done for free through long periods of time. This equitable division of wealth would enable women to stop begging for state aid, which for them is notoriously scanty anyway. And it should start just now for women’s communal and cultural projects!

The constant social and economic unbalance in which all of today’s national states find themselves would come to an end. The current horrendous flow of money into male projects – the military, multinational corporations, monumental prestige-buildings and ego-architecture, huge sports stadiums and events costing hundreds of millions of dollars – means that there is nothing left but pitifully small amounts for social services, as women are expected to provide these for free. It is the usual situation of exploiting women. With the equal division of financial national wealth, women would probably establish infrastructures to fulfil social needs, with the likely result that communities, healthcare, culture and education would flourish. And women would establish their own schools and universities, because their knowledge is never respected in patriarchal societies. But even men are not free to do what they want with their share of money, for the projects of women and men in the communities and regions would be agreed upon by the local and regional consensus councils, according to maternal values.

Global structures for global problems

The other direction in which the public wealth of national states should be dissolved would be the structures of the Women’s Global Council and the Men’s Global Council. An agreed-upon percentage of women’s and men’s wealth from all the regions would go to these two halves of the Global Council, conducted by delegates of both sexes. The Global Council’s assets would be used exclusively to solve the global problems of the polluted air and water and soil and the damaged life on earth, that means, to clean up the technology-caused legacy of pollution by military powers and industrial corporations.

Members of the Women’s Global Council and the Men’s Global Council are always elected delegates from each region, and are responsible to their region; they have no power to make decisions independently of their region’s determinations. They moderate and coordinate the decisions of all regions of the world in precisely the same sense that a regional or local council coordinates the decisions of the matri-clans.

With these structures, what we call a “state” dissolves, regardless of whether it is a monarchy, an autocracy, a so-called democratic national state, an empire or a super-power. The concept and image of the hierarchical “state,” no matter how constituted, have become redundant. Patriarchal history of established domination began with the formation of “states” every time. With the development of new matriarchal societies, which are free of domination, a new, humane history of cultures could begin.

Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth is a mother and a grandmother. She earned her Ph.D. in philosophy of science at the University of Munich where she taught for ten years (1973-1983). She has published extensively on philosophy of science, in addition to various books on matriarchal society and culture, and is a founder of Modern Matriarchal Studies. Her magnum opus: Matriarchal Societies. Studies on Indigenous Cultures across the Globe, (Lang 2012, New York) defines the topic and provides a world tour of examples of contemporary matriarchal cultures. She has been visiting professor at the University of Montreal in Canada, and the University of Innsbruck in Austria. In 1986, she founded the International ACADEMY HAGIA for Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality in Germany is its director. In 2003, 2005 and 2011 she organized three World Congresses on Matriarchal Studies in Europe and the U.S.A. In 2005, she was elected by the international initiative “1000 Peace Women Across the Globe” as a nominee for the Nobel Peace.

Matriarchal Politics: The Vision of an Egalitarian Society (Part 1) by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchy, with women ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are mother-centered societies: they are based on maternal values: care-taking, nurturing, motherliness, mutual support, peace keeping and building by negotiation, which holds for everybody: for mothers and those who are not mothers, for women and men alike. Matriarchal societies are consciously built upon the maternal values and motherly work, and this is why they are much more realistic than patriarchies. They are, on principle, need-oriented and not power-oriented, they are gender-egalitarian societies, and most of them are fully egalitarian. Their precepts aim to meet everyone’s needs with the greatest benefit. So, in matriarchies, motherhood – which originates as a biological fact – is transformed into a cultural model.

It is becoming increasingly clear that this radically different cultural model of matriarchy will have great significance for the future of women and mothers, and of humankind in general. We can gain much stimulation and insights from them, which – unlike abstract utopias – have been lived over millennia. Continue reading “Matriarchal Politics: The Vision of an Egalitarian Society (Part 1) by Heide Goettner-Abendroth”

Women Invented Agriculture, Pottery, and Weaving and Created Neolithic Religion by Carol P. Christ

When I look at the two chapters on Goddess history in my book Rebirth of the Goddess (1996), there is very little I would change, but there is new evidence I would add.* Before discussing that, I would like to underscore two important points I made in discussing Goddess history that are often overlooked or ignored by other writers. The first is that women were the likely inventors of three new technologies at the beginning of the Neolithic age: agriculture (because they were the gatherers of plants and the preparers of plant foods), pottery (primarily used for food storage and preparation), and weaving (women’s role in almost all traditional societies). The second is that the so-called “age of the Goddess” is not a more “primitive” or “unconscious” stage of culture that needed to be superseded or overthrown by more “evolved” or more “rational” patriarchal warrior cultures.

Cultural theorists like the archetypal psychologist Carl Jung assert that “the feminine” represents the unconscious and nonrational ways of knowing such as intuition. From this it follows for them that the age of the Goddess was the age of the unconscious. This sounds good to some women and even to some feminists who have experienced aspects of so-called rational philosophical, theological, and scientific traditions as dogmatic, authoritative and wrong! Wrong about women and wrong when they exclude other than narrowly defined “rational” ways of knowing. However, there are important reasons to reject Jung’s theory.

The theory that earlier more “feminine” or pre-patriarchal cultures are unconscious or pre-rational has been used by Jung and his followers to justify the overthrow of earlier cultures by patriarchal warrior groups in order to allow humanity to develop so-called rational ways of thinking which are identified as “masculine.” That the so-called rational men of these cultures were warlike, subordinated women, seized other people’s lands, and held slaves is rarely counted against their alleged superiority. Moreover, the theory that the pre-patriarchal Goddess cultures of the Neolithic can be categorized as unconscious in no way accounts for the technological inventions that define the Neolithic era. Continue reading “Women Invented Agriculture, Pottery, and Weaving and Created Neolithic Religion by Carol P. Christ”

Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchies, with women ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are mother-centered societies. They are based on maternal values: care-taking, nurturing, mothering. This holds for everybody: for mothers and those who are not mothers, for women and men alike.

Matriarchal societies are consciously built upon maternal values and motherly work, and this is why they are much more realistic than patriarchies. They are, on principle, need-oriented. They aim to meet everyone’s needs with the greatest benefit. So, in matriarchies, mothering – which originates as a biological fact – is transformed into a cultural model. This model is much more appropriate to the human condition than the patriarchal conception of motherhood which is used to make women, and especially mothers, into slaves.

Within matriarchal cultures, equality means more than just a levelling of differences. Natural differences between the genders and the generations are respected and honoured, but they never serve to create hierarchies, as is common in patriarchy. The different genders and generations each have their own dignity, and through complementary areas of activity, they function in concert one other. More precisely, matriarchies are societies with complementary equality, where great care is taken to provide a balance. This applies to the balance between genders, among generations, and between humans and nature. Maternal values as ethical principles pervade all areas of a matriarchal society. This creates an attitude of care-taking, nurturing, and peacemaking. Continue reading “Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis by Heide Goettner-Abendroth”

The Matricide Basic to Patriarchy’s Birth by Carol P. Christ

About 20 years ago I witnessed a performance of the 3 plays of the Oresteia (the Orestes plays) by Aeschylus. I was stunned. Watching them in sequence, I understood that the plays were one of patriarchy’s “just so stories” and that their continuing performance was part and parcel of patriarchy’s perpetuation and legitimation.

According to the myths, Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, ran off to Troy with its prince, Paris. In revenge for his lost honor, Menelaus called the Greeks to attack Troy and bring her back. Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus and king of Mycenae, assembled his ships, but the wind refused to fill their sails. He was told that his army would be allowed to depart only if he killed his daughter Iphigenia. He lured his daughter and her mother Clytemnestra to the place where his ships were waiting with the promise of marriage to Achilles. When they arrived, he killed his daughter and the ships sailed.

The myths do not tell us that in matrilineal and egalitarian matriarchal cultures the mother-daughter bond is the sacred because it represents the continuation of life. Continue reading “The Matricide Basic to Patriarchy’s Birth by Carol P. Christ”

Harriet Boyd Hawes, Marija Gimbutas, and the Religion of Ancient Crete by Carol P. Christ

One of the projects I am working on these days is an essay on the religion of ancient Crete for a series of books on various aspects of the Minoan site of Gournia.

Harriet Boyd excavated the Minoan town of Gournia in 1901-1904. She was one of the first woman archaeologists and the first woman to run her own excavation in Crete, to be followed by Edith H. Hall whom she trained. She was also the first to excavate a Minoan town as opposed to a “palace,” providing the first evidence of daily life in Minoan Crete. Harriet Boyd might have continued to excavate in Crete, but her marriage in 1906, followed by the birth of her son soon thereafter, caused her to lose interest in a career as an excavator. Nonetheless, she published the results of her excavations in her book Gournia in 1908 and taught at Wellesley College until she reached retirement age.* Continue reading “Harriet Boyd Hawes, Marija Gimbutas, and the Religion of Ancient Crete by Carol P. Christ”

Iroquoian Women: Power Held and Shared by Carol P. Christ

According to Barbara Alice Mann, author of Iroquoian Women, women were at the center of a matrilineal Iroquoian society that could be called (though she does not call it that) an “egalitarian matriarchy.” As in other egalitarian matriarchies, including those of the Mosuo and the Minangkabau, women both hold power and share it with men. According to Peggy Reeves Sanday who studied many societies in the anthropological records, female power does not mean female domination.

In attempting to reconstruct the role of women in Iroquois society, Mann first had to engage in a painstaking deconstruction of the scholarly consensus that men ruled among the Iroquois. Believing that male dominance is universal, scholars ignored or explained away a great deal of evidence that Iroquoian women were and are at the center of Iroquoian society. Those who believe that academic scholarship is objective or relatively objective may have to revise their opinions after reading the masses of evidence of witting and unwitting distortion of Iroquois society that Mann uncovers. In order to reconstruct the role of women in Iroquoian society, Mann also had to deal with the fact that the American government destroyed much of Iroquoian oral tradition through policies of forced assimilation that removed children to government schools and forbade the speaking of native languages. Continue reading “Iroquoian Women: Power Held and Shared by Carol P. Christ”

What I Believe (Post-2016) by John Erickson

Ever since the election of You-Know-Who, I have been doing a lot of creative writing.

Ever since the election of You-Know-Who, I have been doing a lot of creative writing. Unlike academic publications, policy reports, or my dissertation, creative writing, much like my mentor Dr. Marie Cartier has written about, provided me with a needed escape from a world that seems to grow darker with each passing day. In college, I served as Poetry Editor for the Wisconsin Review, the oldest literary journal in Wisconsin. Continue reading “What I Believe (Post-2016) by John Erickson”

Sacred Marriage or Unholy Cover-up? by Carol P. Christ

carol-p-christ-photo-michael-bakas Many women are drawn to the image of the Sacred Marriage—perhaps especially those raised in Roman Catholic or Protestant traditions where sex is viewed as necessary for procreation but nothing more, and who learn that the naked female body as symbolized by Eve is the source of sin and evil. In this context, the positive valuing of sexuality and the female body found in symbols of the Sacred Marriage can feel and even be liberating.

Jungians have claimed that the Sacred Marriage is an archetype of the wedding between the “masculine” and the “feminine.” Many women have been attracted to this idea as well. It “softens” the radical feminist critique of patriarchy and male dominance. Rather than “castrating” the “phallocracy” as Mary Daly urged, we can think in terms of the “marriage” of qualities traditionally associated with male and female roles. Women, it is said, can use a good dose of ego and assertiveness traditionally associated with the masculine, while men need to have their dominating rational egos tempered by feminine qualities like care and compassion. Continue reading “Sacred Marriage or Unholy Cover-up? by Carol P. Christ”

Shared Leadership: The Hidden Treasure of Women’s Ritual Dance by Laura Shannon

Greek women dancing, attributed to a vase in the Museo Borbonico, Naples. From The dance: Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. London, 1911 — Greek women dancing, attributed to a vase in the Museo Borbonico, Naples.
From The dance: Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. London, 1911

Traditional women’s dances of Greece, the Balkans and the Near East come from cultures which have survived countless periods of upheaval, and teach skills which can help us through difficult times. I see their gifts as a precious inheritance from the ancestors, passed down through many generations. One particularly valuable skill which the dances emphasizes is that of mutual support and shared leadership among women.

Leadership in traditional dance is not limited to a few who have garnered social rank and power. Dance leadership is shared according to the occasion, and everyone must be prepared to lead dances at important events in their lifetime.

On Greek islands such as Lesvos, a small parea or group of women will typically dance the Syrtós together in a short line or open circle. The first dancer may express herself through turns and graceful flourishes of her free hand, varying her handhold and body position to dynamically interact with the other dancers. The women continually change places in the circle, encouraging one another to take the first position so that everyone eventually has a chance to lead. Continue reading “Shared Leadership: The Hidden Treasure of Women’s Ritual Dance by Laura Shannon”