Gettin' a little deep, man, have a chili dog and a slurpee before the
next bong hit. mkay? If someone comes to you and starts pummeling you
with the obvious intent of killing you, whst will you do? Reason with
him? Perhaps you would ask him if he would prefer reading poetry with
you? Zen man, zen.

I have a train of thought that may be the ultimate weapon...

If all knowledge...all history of Patriarchal society was
abolished...poof!!!! gone..

I wonder what a Matriarchal society would have done differently...

Remove all traces, of Church, of every male dominated arena...and
replace them with a female perspective, uncluttered by male dominant
dominance...


I wonder if there would ever have been guns in the first place, and how
differently society may look.

Have you ever been in a female dominant dominance? Can be as bad or
worse than the male one.

We work best as an equal team. Once you give dominance to either male
or female you have an imbalance.

Ever been in a matriarchal dominated environment?

Yes...I live in one within my home...

I wonder how society may have been different...without the Patriarchal
chains, restrictions and limits, that have leached down through the
centuries...

Most women of today are products of patriarchal society...from an
anthropological veiwpoint, I am curious.

As to balance, AB, there hasn't been a balance with women and men,
societially, since history was first recorded....

Male dominance in society has been the flavour for so long...I do wonder
how different it may have looked.

It worked very well for the Cherokees for thousands of years.

Get rid of the weapons and peace will prevail?

When you have no weapons peace depends on the good will of your
neighbors.

I don't suppose anybody here has given any thought to the poor souls in
Darfur who are weaponless and being murdered by others.

Belushi was wrong on all but the remote control response.

Money does not solve everything, kariZman. Avarice, oh yeah, oh yeah,
don't ya just love it.

If you have no good will between neighbors and no respect for civility
you better have weapons or at least somebody you trust better have some.

Are there any countries who have no police? Oh I think we are back to
Darfur again aren't we?

This might be a good moment for some nice Zen or Tao, but don't destroy
the protectors of peace yet.

In my country there is a lot of good will. I live in America. I like it
here. I'm not afraid of my neighbors. My neighbors know not to walk into
my house without permission. They know that if they walk into some
houses they will be shot. They don't always know which houses.

As for me, I welcome about everybody. but I don't trust anarchists or
religious zealots with the purse of my country. If our country had no
weapons, I think it would be a short while before the country looked
like Darfur.

You're more likely to be well off with whirled peas than to expect world
peace through universal disarmament.

Would want to live in a world run by women like Hilary Clinton.

Thanks for the train of thought to work with...


I am finding in this arena, it is pretty much a futile experience for
me...perhaps across the table over coffee...in the not too distant
future, we can look at this..

Hi, Lee,

Many thanks for a thought-provoking set of questions! Some ideas come to
mind....

This subject comes up from time to time in the political discussions
here in Washington, but we never seem to be able to really close on it
in any insightful way.

The question suggests that the qualitative results of a society 'run' by
women would be different from those achieved by men. It is a valid
hypothesis, IMO. When we tackle it, we get hung up on several items.

1. The women leaders that we have had in recent history seem no better
than the men, e.g. Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir.

2. The most prominent woman politician in the US, Hillary Clinton, seems
to have made the same mistakes as Senator as her male counterparts on
key issues, e.g. Iraq, the 'War on Terror', etc.

3. The response to this is simple: these women are deemed to have become
'like men', in order to achieve their positions of influence. The
argument seems straightforward, but then it starts to get squirrelly....

4. If this is so, then perhaps the negatives that are popularly
associated with men as leaders (arrogance, macho, bullying, overly
competitive, testosterone-driven, etc.) are really the characteristics
of people generally who make it to positions of leadership or aspire to
-- and not intrinsic to men.

5. Maybe so, then goes the response, so maybe we should reorder society
in such a way that feminine characteristics (popularly given as
cooperation, empathy, consensus, etc.) can come to the fore, with their
beneficial effects.

6. So it comes down to a discussion as to what characteristics are
beneficial, and which aren't -- and you know how that discussion goes
without having to repeat it here. (And we see some of its live effects
here in JSH!)

Personally, I would love to see the experiment done. Surely we need to
find better models of leadership, and better structures to our society
and its culture, and we will not find answers by arguing them, but by
experimenting with them, and seeing what works and what doesn't....

I am at a loss to see how such an experiment can be set up though. Any
ideas?

Do societies experience a pendulum swing between 'male' and 'female'
characteristics? Societies contain many polarities and there is no
reason to think that gender alternatives isn't one of them.

There have been societies in the past and some still exist today that
were/are matriarchal. At one time, as I understand it, the Goddess ran
things, not the male God.

Can we assert factually that there was a qualitative differences in
their experiences? What of present matriarchal societies?

Oceans

Fanta, can you say more about the Cherokee experience?

Thanks,
Oceans

AUTARKY

It has been tried. Doesn't work. I believe Hitler attempted it
last. No joke. I may be wrong

Wiki Autarky.
North Korea? The only shining!?! example left, sort of.

Modern autarkies

Mercantilism was a policy followed by empires, especially in the 17th
and 18th century, forbidding or limiting trade outside the empire. In
the 20th century autarky as a policy goal was sought by Nazi Germany in
the 1930s, by maximizing trade within its economic bloc and minimizing
trade outside it.

Today, complete economic autarkies (or autarchies) are rare. An example
of a current autarky is North Korea, based on the government ideology of
Juche (self-reliance). However, even North Korea has a small amount of
trade with the People's Republic of China and Japan. Bhutan, seeking to
preserve an economic and cultural system centered around the dzong, has
until recently maintained an effective economic embargo against the
outside world, and has been described as an autarky. With the
introduction of roads and electricity, however, the kingdom is being
forced into trade relations as its citizens seek modern manufactured
goods

Jess and Ocean, I've been debating whether or not to post, but I knew if
the hour got late enought, I would venture here.

I would like to address the "if we were a matriarcal sociaty" question,
but from a different point of view.

In my society, we are all women. The most common question I have ever
heard about same sex women is "who's the man?". The concept of a
couple or a family, without a man is so foreign to our world that it is
practically inpenitrable. So I will try to give some insight, as I
see it, into what a matriarcal society might be.

As Oceans pointed there are those who naturally have a stronger will.
These, however, are not always the ones who 'rule the roost'. There
are some who naturally gravitate to manual labor, gruff talk, bib
overalls, and big rigs. While their counterparts are are teachers,
nurses, and all manner of white collar workers.

So what makes these family units different? The biggest difference can
be found in the conditions that seem to be inherently feminine.
Intuition, as it is called, is one of these conditions. Maternal
instinct, that can extend beyond one's own flesh and blood. A naturally
occuring bond of affection for those one gets to know. But of all of
these, what you will find most predominant, is a deep passion for
fairness and right, a great need for open communication, and a fearless
desire to keep all those close to them from harm. Both can be seen as
caretakers, giving when there seems nothing left to give.

This is the nature of women. What I see daily, is this nature doubled,
in same female run families. This is why I even have a community of
people like myself to be a part of.

If women were the glory of society, all freedoms would be assured to
every culture, the first agenda would have been, to secure relationships
between our fellow women. To, fairly, share the wealth. Because for
us, it is all about community, family, security, and the ability to
communicate at all levels and all pitches, and in the end, hug and have
a meal.

Not to say there are not exceptions, lol. But if you think about it.
Women have been holding together society in way or another since the
dawn of time. If we had been given the power to rise to our ability -
who knows how much farther we might be in this race - race for peace and
a shared common wealth.

Now you got me daydreaming too.

AUTARKY self sufficiency.how much do you need .

Redy,

Those are nice thoughts and you have clearly carved out a nice
environment for yourself and family but I have to disagree with some
aspects of your post.

You describe your family units as different when I would simply call
them effective and loving family units. To me, it doesn't matter if a
family is composed of two women, two men or one each. Maternal vs
Paternal instincts vary among individuals. We all know good and bad
examples with each sex. Being a woman doesn't make you more loving or
compassionate.

What you see daily in your environment may be one thing but what I see
from both men and women is entirely different. Like men, women can be
the most vindictive, violent, unloving, jealous creatures that ever
walked the earth. The opposite is also true but making women the glory
of society will never assure freedom for every culture just as making
men the leader will not.

I believe women have the same capacity as men to be great leaders which
is what this world needs. But their strength will come from their
ability to master a multitude of leadership skills rather than their
sex.

anyway, my .02.

beautiful address to Matriarchy Red,

i guess i was quite fortunate to have enjoyed the cultural advantages of
my Motherland Lebanon.

I was raised in a Matriarchal family, in my family tree are many
branches , but the ones that grew from a female lineage were not
recorded because they were female. But the women kept their records as
well and these were beautifully meticulous and important.

my grandmothers were Cheikhas, and held title to their property, and
governed extended family communities in a number of ways, they were also
educated women and were some of the first professionals in their fields
, of medicine, science, philosophy, and business. Alliances were made
thru marriages carefully negotiated and woven into Lebanese political
fabric. Women, muslim and christian could live in a climate of harmony
and had quite a powerful influence over ALL DOMESTIC ISSUES and in many
ways actually, created their communities within the insular boundaries
of the cultural and political climate around them...

Traditions ...and our social conditioning, were designed by people just
like us, and just as they have invented rules and conditions for what is
correct to the protocol of the day, ....so can we.

within what seemed to be oppression was a powerful force, and tho quiet
in it's female nature ,was nonetheless one of the FOUNDATIONS of
Lebanese culture , which is known for it's generous hospitality, and
neutral harmony within the Arab and Israeli communities......until.

but that's another angle.

this is only a fragment of a huge picture, the point is that many
societies and communities all over the world do actually thrive, florish
and develope because of their women, i have seen this over and over in
the camps ...it is the mothers that have survived and the
daughters.....because the sons and fathers are killed or kidnapped and
then forced to do the same in the next village , drugged and beaten,
they either kill or get killed....most don't make it.

so it's the women.

and now with what's ahead..if we are inevitably arriving in WW3, or the
fulfillment of so many prophesies, wouldn't this be a window of
opportunity to use the REAL FEMININE ENERGY to collectively design

a new era for humanity....

let's face it...we are the one's raising the future...if we don't walk
the walk , then we have sold out our gender like Oceans mentioned about
Thatcher etc.

how we raise our children, what we actively boycott , OUR ETHICAL
CHOICES, our morality...we as mothers are the first to show this to our
children, in how we treat them. how we treat ourselves and the world we
are so fortunate to inhabit. SO.

i figured ...as in "Pay it Forward"
i have raised 3 and they have already made clear contributions to this
goal with their lives...and so it goes

it's up to us...it's not just a daydream, it's just a life!

it would help i think if men and women were a bit more in touch with
their androgyny.

that would work if only we were actually free of our biology...


our geneology really does choreograph "the dance"

Good morning, everyone!

What a delight to log on and find these wonderful, thoughful and
thought-provoking posts waiting for me. I feel like a kid coming
downstairs on Christmas Day!

Let me open the presents, play with them, and I'll be back....

Thank you.

Oceans