I am curious and asking this in good faith, but what is an example of a matriarchy or matriarchal society (a female-ruled society) that has existed?As far as I am aware, every society ever recorded and testified to in the archaeological record has been mainly patriarchal, meaning it was men who held most of the power, though to greater or lesser degrees of male-domination among differing societies, for example in how Greco-Roman societies were far more patriarchal or male dominated, even the point where in Classical Greece it was considered best for women to be left to one quarter in the home in a practice similar to more recent and even current ways of segregating men and woman in Islamic societies, than Germanic societies were, where women were not cordoned off spatially like in distinct quarters of the home but were allowed free range in most public spaces.I am not aware of a single genuinely matriarchal or officially woman-led society that has existed. There are societies where women have more freedom or influence than in others, but this has never risen to the level, in my knowledge, of true matriarchy.Even today, when women are now out-earning men in general in the workforce and women are overtaking men in income, we do not have a matriarchy, just a society in which women exercise unprecedented levels of economic and political participation, where the highest decision makers remain men.I think it is incorrect to classify today's feminist society as any kind of matriarchy because "matriarchy" implies both that women hold most of the decision-making power in society, especially in the state, and that it is accepted as normal within the society or by the members of society that women hold most of the decision-making power.As things presently stand, women do have unprecedented amounts of power and influence in modern societies that have experienced intense and mostly successful feminist movements, but we remain some distance away from a
>>521068783being a society where not only do women hold and exert most of the decision-making power, but also this practice is accepted as normal and ordinary among the society's members.The way things are heading, there does seem to be a chance of matriarchy developing out of the current state of affairs as women accrue ever greater wealth and influence relative to men, but I am skeptical that matriarchy is even possible, given the nature or constitution of the two sexes of humans, men and women, in light of how even the most materially and socially successful women still prefer to be under male leadership such that high-level women managers and executives still yearn to be able to turn to a man, who outranks them, before finally making a serious decision, and in how women, if there is not a higher-ranking man above them whom they can consult before finally making a major decision, will instead look to another authority to guide them (and to whom they can shift blame if their decision turns out to be mistaken), such as social convention or tradition or some school of thought like a religion, before making a major decision in the final stage of the whole decision-making process before the decision is finalized and the next step in the executive process is its implementation, or the enactment, institutionally or socially, or what the decision entails, where decisions are just instructions for institutional or social situations that are intended to be actualized or achieved (executed).And those collective authorities high-ranking, powerful women turn to before making a final major decision, when they cannot find a man above them to consult and, in effect, make the decision for them (when women seem to be looking for a man's advice in making a serious decision, what they are really doing is not just looking for advice but instead they are effectively allowing, in fact asking or imploring, the man to make the decision himself such that the "powerful woman's
>>521068840decision" is merely presented as her decision publicly, when in reality, at a deeper level behind the scenes of what is allowed to enter the public awareness, it was a man who made the decision and then the powerful woman, or woman in a position of recognized power (who in fact dislikes using her power in serious matters, meaning that she is uncomfortable acting unilaterally to the extent that her power is a public farce and surreptitiously is already surrendered to some male authority who is unknown at the public level to be the real power behind the supposedly powerful woman's decisions), and then in situations where a supposed powerful, i.e. officially placed into a position of authority with a clearly defined scope of powers), woman cannot find an outranking man to "guide" her, which is to day, make the decision for her but in secret so as not to reveal her ongoing craving for male authority and to have a male leader onto whom she can shift any blame if the decision turns out to be a bad one), then the collective institution, which can be a social convention or tradition of thought and values or up to any kind of social institution within the entire range thereof, which is an established institution long accepted and regarded with authority by the society at large, turns out to be an institution developed by men and still bearing hallmarks of patriarchal rule even if women are now officially placed into positions of authority within what essentially remains an institution of a patriarchal order of society, which entails that even when "powerful women" cannot find a yet more powerful individual man or authority figure over themselves to make a major decision for them which is them palmed off as their own decision at the level of public awareness, the powerful women are once again, albeit in a more albeit and anonymous, more collectivized manner, turning to some male authority that they regard as above them, namely a social institution of some kind
>>521068909that was founded and developed or shaped by men thinking and reasoning in masculine ways, so as to avoid the burden, which women consider overwhelming and unbearable, of unilaterally making a decision of any weight.This is why I am skeptical of any matriarchy, or truly women-led society, emerging even from the hyper-feminist order of things that exists now in modern societies that have experienced widespread and successful feminist movement, and I am skeptical not only that a matriarchy will arise from the best soil ever for further empowerment of women, namely today's super-feminist societies, but I am skeptical of the very possibility of matriarchy entirely, which is to say I tend to think it impossible that a truly women-led society, where women are unilaterally making the final decisions on serious matters, even to exist, just given the facts of women's nature and the natural and virtually immutable roles of the sexes as they apply among the human species, specifically the fact that any woman, no matter how supposedly powerful she is, meaning no matter how much official power is vested in the office or position she holds, will seek out a yet higher authority, exclusively a male one, when the moment of decision arrives and the supposedly powerful woman is now expected to make a decision of serious import, such that if an individual man ranked above a woman cannot be found to "guide" her decision-making process (in fact, make the decision for her while the decision is publicly presented as her own), then the supposedly powerful woman will instead turn to the established authority of an old male-dominated, patriarchal social institution to, again, "guide" the final step of making the decision before the decision becomes official and its implementation ensues as the next step, beyond decision making, in the executive process, where the guidance that the collective male authority of the social institution consulted by the supposedly powerful woman
>>521068956constitutes decision-making rather than mere guidance because the woman found an authority figure, albeit a non-individual one as in a single man, that she considers to have had the final say.Women, it seems to me, are constitutionally incapable of making serious decisions unilaterally or on their own, and instead they are ever seeking out male guidance, meaning male commandments, when the moment of decision arrives and a woman is expected, due to her powerful role or the office she inhabits, to make an important decision that will then become policy for some weighty issue.So I doubt a true matriarchy is even possible in light of the nature of the human female in particular, the nature of the woman, and the nature of the two humans sexes as they relate to one another in general, where the man is always accepted and expected, ultimately and of course not in every case, to be the true wielder of power.I would go so far as to say that women find it unbearable living without ultimate male authority over themselves, hence women's self-destructive behavior when a strong male authority is not present in their lives, like a decent father or boss at work or husband or even a church leader.
>>521069015TLDR: A woman cannot genuinely even feel comfortable in her own skin, or safe in her environment, to the extent of having some basic level of nervous activity that is less than anxiety or fear and which level is the lowest level of nervousness that the human female brain and its body are capable of (since women are naturally nervous creatures and even their least nervous states are quite nerve-wracking compared to men's basal nervous condition), unless a an authoritative man, whom the woman accepts to outrank her and whom the woman, therefore, wishes and in fact needs to follow, is present, or barring the possibility of such a male authority figure entering a woman's environment, then some male social institution will have to take its place in the woman's life in order to relieve the woman's high-level of nervous excitement, manifested as anxiousness or even outright fear, that attends her at all times when the presence of strong male authority is not available, with the consequence that when sufficient male authority is lacking in a woman's life, enough to preclude her from living in constant anxiety and fear, a woman becomes socially and psychologically "lost," as in she cannot make proper sense of the world, and then she begins to turn self-destructive as a way of signaling for help or, in the most extreme cases, gesturing that she wants out of this anxious existence that she finds unbearable due to lack of a man's leadership over her, even while women's self-destructive behaviors seldom result in actually taking women "out of the world" a la successful suicides because woman are, by nature, just less physically violent than men are, which capacity for physical violence that men have turns out to be, in fact, one of those traits women need to have in their lives in order to feel basically safe, since all women know, deep down, and no matter how comfortable modern life can become, that this is always a fundamentally dangerous world.
>>521069085The above is just a semi-long thing I wrote the other day questioning the possibility of matriarchy and coming down on the side that matriarchy, almost surely, turns out not to be possible, if "matriarchy" is understood to be a society where women truly have the highest power, particularly in the state, which requires the regular practice of women making major decisions for societies, from the state on down to lesser institutions in which they hold powerful roles, and that women make these decisions ON THEIR OWN, or of their own accord, which is to say, the women inhabiting powerful offices are not turning to male authority figures to, in effect, decide for them, whether that authority figure is an individual man or some institution or tradition founded by men.Today's hyper-feminism can of course go much further, for example if women end up possessing three quarters of each hyper-feminist society's wealth and occupy three quarters of each hyper-feminist society's official roles vested with authority. But this still isn't a matriarchy if the women officially empowered in virtue of their titles, or the offices they hold, are still turning to make authority figures in their lives to make the decisions for them.And yes, we may end up in a situation where only the top 10% of males according to society's definition of success or rank are able to obtain access to women of reproductive age and therefore only 10% of men are reproducing, complete with harems and all. It's possible we could experience a modern, updated version of the Late Stone Age and Early Bronze Age where the most alpha of alpha males have monopolized all the fertile women and non-alphas just get unfertile leftovers or nothing at all. Maybe we'll end up in this scenario, maybe we won't; only time will tell.But this is still a male dominated society, of course. All societies that have existed have been patriarchies, which is not to say that they've all been "oppressive" of women, as the
>>521069788misguided, biased, and politically intended current wave of the feminist movement centered on "patriarchy theory" proclaims. The control men exert over women in patriarchal societies, which is to say in all societies, varies significantly, from today's Nordic societies where women are nearly feral to Afghanistan under the Taliban and everything in between.In fact, patriarchy implies no oppression of women whatsoever, and one can argue, I am sure successfully, that women can only be free in the right kind of patriarchy, if freedom for women means being able to live the way they prefer, which is always under some ultimate male authority figure which makes their important decisions and keeps them safe. So patriarchy is of no moral import, or has no moral value right or wrong, but is just a fact of life. Rather, what does affect the moral quality of a given society with regard to its treatment of women is how the society constitution, or configuration in general, either enables or stymies women's ability to find contentment.When viewed from this perspective, modern hyper-feminist societies turn out to be morally bad insofar as the moral valuation of their treatment of women goes. Women in hyper-feminist places and times are not content and in fact are blocked from being able to have contentment, meaning peaceful states of mind or a general feeling of being at ease, because hyper-feminist societies deprive women of ready access to competent male authority figures who enable women to feel not just safe, but even basically comfortable in their own skin.A real political concern for women, therefore a real feminist movement, would take a realistic look at women's nature and then advocate for a society, again necessarily some form of patriarchy, in which woman are able to feel most at ease and contented with their lives and their roles.
