At forty-seven in a time of great revealing, I am becoming calmer. The sexual abuse perpetrated by powerful men has been shocking if not surprising. Those of us who have been “awake” for quite some time to the abuses of men in general and the toxic patriarchal system we are forced to live in more specifically, are not immune to new levels of shock. Patriarchy is inhumane and unnatural. Male dominance has brought the planet to destruction, women and children to victimhood, forced to use the term “survivor” to keep our dignity, and boundaries drawn around land out of fear and obedience. Patriarchy seeks to conquer, not cooperate; it seeks to dominate, not grow. However, in the end, life finds a way, growth is inevitable, and truth seeps out through the cracks. The truth is that men were never meant to lead. They have a place to be sure, just as women have a place as nurturer. The mistake is in thinking there is a hierarchy. There is no hierarchy; there is only protection. In a matriarchy, children and the most vulnerable are at the center of the circle (not a ladder, a circle). In order for a species to survive, children must thrive because they represent the future. Men and women protect and nurture the most vulnerable, each with their own strengths, but they play equal roles in helping to build a community that ensures all thrive and succeed. Women are more naturally inclined to lead in societies built around community. Men are built to protect those communities and serve the queen, the woman, the matriarch. I hesitate to use the work “queen” because that insinuates hierarchy, but in its earliest form, the root word gwen meant only “woman.” As the word evolved, it grew to mean female ruler as it was politicized in society. It is my belief that all members of society have their role, but who leads isn’t about hierarchy; it’s about survival of the species. Cooperation and resource distribution are meant to benefit the whole of society to allow everyone to flourish. Trees do this; matriarchal animal species do this in nature. Humans have broken that contract because something has gone awry in our species, and that unequal domination is destroying everything around us. 

Religion has played an integral role in this, a way to manipulate people into serving a role that serves that hierarchy of power. Religion and power have convinced many humans that God is at the top, followed by man, then woman, then child. But God in this sense is a construct, a way to define how we should be executing our lives and communities. My own evolution sees God as a thread in all of us, binding us together. God is a connector of love in a society meant to take care of each other rather than dominate one another. The patriarchal God is a disconnector, making one person higher than another by birth or by circumstance. The matriarchal God sees us all as equal and necessary to thrive in this world. There is no scarcity in this world when we are looking out for each other. But in a  patriarchal world, scarcity is used as a weapon of obedience, creating fear so that we fall in line and beg for the resources we need to thrive. 

I am convinced that the uncovering of mass abuse and violence among an elite group of men is forcing us to evolve back into a societal order that will correct the fallacies patriarchy is revealing to us. In a world that is clearly dying, our human survival depends on us going back to our matriarchal roots in order to give our species a surviving chance in an ever changing world. Women are fed up with men leading. This isn’t about hating men; it’s about appreciating what they bring to the table and aligning it with the greater vision of a cooperative and egalitarian world that ensures our survival. If men continue to lead, we will surely perish this Earth. If women lead, we will form a world that nurtures the children who represent our future, allowing them to thrive so that they can solve problems collectively instead of creating more wars that distract from that larger problem in front of all of us. Instead of growing warriors who have to fight one another in a dog-eat-dog capitalist society, we should be growing thinkers and problem-solvers who know how to work together to solve the problems of our world and ensure a prosperous society where all contribute and all thrive. Capitalism is built to extract from each other in order to make more money for a few; it doesn’t build on each others’ strengths to form a stronger unbreakable unit. If we must bring religion into it, Jesus represented a more matriarchal view of the world, resisting the dominant power structures that exploited people and ranked them. Jesus preached the protection of children and the most vulnerable and, yes, he was trying to bring women back into the circle as a critical piece of living a loving existence where all are worthy and loved by God.

Why do men want to carry the weight of the world anyway when life is so much better when that weight is shared? The male loneliness epidemic is a direct result of a patriarchal system in crisis and failure. As women finally have room to rise and flourish, men no longer understand their role, having been so brainwashed into thinking they were meant to lead, provide, and dominate. But true leadership is a shared experience, a cooperative partnership where strengths take on roles that serve the community as a whole. True honor is acquired through that service, and the weak ones, under true love and guidance, learn to be successful contributors to the whole through nurturing and mentorship of the community. Men are being asked to rise to that role, to step back and rather than assume dominance, move into partnership with women. Many are great at this, but the patriarchy is so ingrained in some men (and women) that we are experiencing backlash right now from the powerful few who do not want to evolve and are trying to hold onto that power. The zero sum game fallacy is dying, and we are being asked as a community to form something new, where all boats rise because we are creating a dynamic that ensures our collective success, not individual success. The rugged individualism trope is being exposed and the communal ideology is rising. Humans need connection, belonging, and community to thrive; we always have. Change is scary, but we are at a critical moment where it is necessary and inevitable. 

I mentioned at the beginning of this contemplation that I am calmer. I am calmer because I understand now what is dying and meant to die, and what is being born in its place. A better world is coming. I don’t know if it will be fully realized in my lifetime. I hope so. But I will do what I can to contribute to its inevitable evolution so that my daughter and subsequent generations will actually want to reproduce because they have the safety of their communities to support them rather than dominate them. Our species depends on it and life always finds a way. The Christian trope “Jesus is the Way” is actually a map from patriarchy to matriarchy, but that message has been lost in translation through thousands of years of male dominance trying to exert itself. Patriarchy is failing; let’s give matriarchy a try.