Matriarchal Manifesta by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

What is the STATUS of WOMEN today?

To cite a brief summary of the 1980 UN Report:

 WOMEN make up half of the world population, work nearly two thirds of all hours worked, receive one tenth of worldwide income, and own less than one hundredth of worldwide property.                             (United Nations Report 1980)

What a SCANDAL that is! Yet no one seems to get worked up about it.

But if we women believe a lot has changed in the meantime, then we are mistaken.

In 2010, the President of the UN Economic and Social Council cited the following figures:

WOMEN work 66% of all hours worked worldwide and produce 50% of the  food.  But they get 10% of the world income, own 1% of the property and represent 60% of the world’s poorest.” (Hamidon Ali, UN Press Conference on June 25, 2010)

This was the sitaution in 2000, in 2010, in 2018. The U.N.report is published annually, but nothing changes.  The SCANDAL continues, and we are outraged! Continue reading “Matriarchal Manifesta by Heide Goettner-Abendroth”

Matriarchal Politics The Vision of an Egalitarian Society (Part 2): Macrostructures by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Regionalism

In a new matriarchal society, “bigger” is not necessarily “better.” The smaller units of society, responsible for engendering person-to-person and transparent politics, are given preference. They must not become so big that people cannot see through them, and cannot participate in their decisions, as is the case in so many of today’s national states and super-powers. But they must be big enough to safeguard their self-sufficiency by a subsistence economy, and the diversity of their handiwork, technologies and arts. The ideal dimension is that of the region.

The borders of a region are not random, like national borders are; rather they have developed out of the conditions of the landscape and out of cultural traditions. Regional borders are formed by the decisions of the people themselves who want to live together on the basis of common cultural and spiritual traditions; this avoids any war of culture or of religion. Often the landscape corresponds to these cultural borders, because natural borders can be formed by mountain ranges, rivers, big lakes, or the sea which bind and bound people into their regional places. Continue reading “Matriarchal Politics The Vision of an Egalitarian Society (Part 2): Macrostructures by Heide Goettner-Abendroth”

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”