speculation on the impact of the loss of matriarchy
02 Jul 2020and on the loss of a proper womanhood
Could women have lost their womanhood of the old days because they have nothing to collectively nurture and care about anymore?
As an introduction to some tentative of answer to that question, we can remember ourselves that women have somewhat lost their freedom with the advent of the concept of private property, most precisely, with the concept of heritage. Indeed, when societies started to have surplus and wealth, people would want to bequeath to their offspring, and since it was then patriarchal, they had no choice but to ‘‘chain women to monogamy’’ since male would want to know which children are legitimate (we can not know who’s with certitude the person who impregnated a woman, therefore a woman should only be allowed to have sex with one person). Thing that could have been spared if the matriarchy, or at least, matrilineal heritage, had remained, since it is quite simple to acknowledge who’s the legitimate mother of a child.
By having switched to patriarchy at this point of history, we can’t say that women already had lost a great deal of power and this inequality gap of freedom grew bigger with the time, to then hypothetically become a bit smaller in modern time. We can say that many factors isolated women across history, namely taboos and the nuclear family. I will hypothesize that alienation became more intense with the rise of capitalism, where everything slowly became an ‘‘objet de consommation’’, women included. This, mixed with years of conditioning saying that a woman’s sole purpose is to marry and have kids, has decidedly made the woman weaker in and of itself, but also weaker as womanhood.
The monogamous nature of the occidental society plus the capitalism mindset was a harsh recipe for the feminine psyche, building a feeling of competition among women, centrally based of the idea of desirability, desirability in regards of being especially beautiful and submissive (to men). This probably hasn’t created a culture of cultivation of the inner-world, therefore weakening again the feminine.
One of the question that I need to bring to the table in this examination, and to whom I have no empiric answer in the moment, is ‘‘what does a woman of the matriarchy would have had to fear of another woman?’’ I somewhat feel like that there was nothing to feared of, but I shall come back to this interrogation another day. So let’s go back to a hypothetical world where we bring back matriarchy.
I suggested yesterday in my text On Gender Abolition and Matriarchy that to put women in charge of society could be extremely beneficial for the people. I wrote that it could be somewhat the ultimate healing path to fix femininity related traumas. I kind of believe that in this text as well. And the other layer I add here, is that I think, like my first question suggest, that women have become enemies (or at least, didn’t cultivate strong and enriching sisterhood) namely because they started lacking a common goal, which could have been in the past the maintenance of society, or at least of some communities/bigger families. Like stated in the Gender Abolition and Matriarchy text, women usually respond to stress with ‘‘a tend and befriend’’ reaction, therefore to try to rule society again could help them get along again (I know it is highly simplified here, but we are speculating).
Then my brain makes some weird questions arise. I wonder then if the ‘‘desirability trap’’ would then ‘‘happen to men’’. Like, if matriarchy equals strong sisterhood, therefore less competition, because common goal, would that mean that we are ‘‘stealing the common goal’’ of men, and then removing that from their equation of manhood, make it possibly weaker? Is it even legitimate to pretend that brotherhood is driven by such a common goal and/or that the men in power/the ruling class do have such common goal/vision? Like for sure, capitalists work together to maintain capitalism, but in the end, isn’t selfishness the ultimate motive?
But yeah, parts of me want to investigate more the ‘‘what would happen to men if matriarchy would make a come back’’, but it seems like I’ll fall into very biased hypothesis. Like, deep down, I just feel like saying that everything will be 100% fine and better. Namely because the masculine, which is the driving force right now, can only incarnate through the archetype of the father (or almost), which can be loving, but is mainly authoritative, therefore somewhat sterile. Since the woman comes into at least three archetypes, the virgin, the mother and the crone, I feel like ‘‘men can find what they need’’ there, like there is some variety for their psyche (ouf, to be deepened).
And then other questions, somewhat unrelated, but I was wondering if toxic masculinity and toxic femininity found their root in the same cause. I was also wondering if monogamy was the main cause of unhealthy gender roles today (like, what if society always had been polyamorous?) To be explored.