Matriarchy isn't inverted Patriarchy

Matriarchy isn't inverted Patriarchy



Not as long ago as we would like to pretend the medical community agreed that women were "broken" or malformed men.
Patriarchy is still the dominant paradigm and there is this fear that equality would be more Matriarchy than equality. Matriarchy in this scenario would be an inversion of Patriarchy. A "broken" version of a male idea. In some post-Patriarchal communities (women and men who have reject male dominated concepts) do not display this at all. In fact they tend to exclude men in part, or entirely. From the Alapine's Womyns Lands in Alabama, which are a mostly lesbian older community to the Umoja in Kenya; a refuge for the women and children surviving sexual violence.
This idea of Matriarchy is a reaction to male violence, to Patriarchy at it's most vile and it is still tolerant, strong and thriving. It still doesn't look like "broken" Patriarchy. Women in these communities do not subjugate men. They do not abuse or hunt them for pleasure or sexual gratification. They live, and thrive simply without them. In Umoja there are several villages with more or less exclusion of men. There are ones that permit male contact but do not allow them to live within the village, and there are villages that allow them to live within their walls but they can not hurt, commit any violence or own any property.

This then is what reactionary Matriarchy looks like. A space where men are simply not required. A space where they are a choice, and sometimes a very temporary one.

There are still some traditional Matriarchies. The one that looks most like the idea that Patriarchal fear is in Aka in the African Congo. They live in the forests and are hunter gatherers. There are known to be several tens of thousands of them and they used to be called "pygmies". Childcare and cooking is done by the menfolk and the hunting and fishing done by the women. Violence is almost non existent and smacking a child is grounds for divorce. The men also commonly allow their nipples as a sort of pacifier.
In Mosuo in China, the 40,000 strong community with no word for "father" or "husband".Men live in the houses (large communities) of their Grandmothers, aunts and sisters, helping to raise their children whom are usually fathered by men who live with their own families house. Women do the finances and organising while men fish and tend the pigs.  Their "walking marriages"are a mature agreement that the relationship lasts as long as it lasts.

Interestingly for me, I find these echoing still in communities that have historic Matriarchies, like the Celtic cultures of Ireland and Wales I grew up in. Women ran the finances and the head of the family was likely to be an elderly and vicious woman. God help a man who beat a woman, for he would find (at the granny's behest) all the men in her family on his doorstep before the next night.The first time, they would break his left hand. A second, his right, and a third was usually his legs. Women were outspoken (if your not worried about getting a smack in the mouth you can be) and it was common for them to have "walking marriages" of their own having a distinct preference in the kind of person they wanted to have a child with and a distinctly different kind of man raise, live and love them. Out of necessity (due to dire poverty) the women in these communities often worked, be it doing laundry, raising orphans, or even in the industries pushing carts of coal, steel or iron.
Matriarchal tendencies still simmer just below the surfaces then. Yet when women in matriarchal communities rule they do not tend to horde power. When the centre or focus is mothering, nurturing, support and respect become the dominant ideals. There is emphasis on fairness, kindness and community. For the good of the many, not the few.
 Marriages and relationships tend to be a fluid and adaptive thing. No child is "illegitimate" and children are raised in a community. Crimes, especially violent crimes are greatly reduced in any society that has more egalitarian values. When men are not dominating men they do not react with rage and violence leading to calmer and happier societies.

Some people would like to believe that there has only ever been a fixed "natural" Patriarchal order to cultures but we know that they tend to be the loudest historically, like both ancient Greek and Roman cultures. However even in the male-centric  Greek cultures you find buried the Goddess underneath. Yes they have been paved over by Apollo, but Gaia's snake is underneath.
For the earliest remain of proto-cities we find Goddesses, in a multitude everywhere.

Patriarchy would like to claim that matriarchy is dangerous, wicked and just as bad as the worst kind of patriarchy but we know that it just isn't true.
We also now know that women are not "broken" men. That gender, sex and identity are a spectrum of being with huge parameters. Patriarchy is losing, no matter how hard it fights back because is not healthy for the majority. It makes for pretty monuments and large weapons, poverty and destruction. Our earth is a finite resource and we are in desperate need of a change of ideology. We first need to get rid of the idea that matriarchy looks like broken patriarchy. It looks like families, communities and freedom: sexual, economic, and emotional.