Women at the Center
Women at the Center

Author: Peggy Reeves Sanday

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780801489068

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Contrary to the declarations of some anthropologists, matriarchies do exist. Peggy Reeves Sanday first went to West Sumatra in 1981, intrigued by reports that the matrilineal Minangkabau--one of the largest ethnic groups in Indonesia--label their society a matriarchy. Numbering some four million in West Sumatra, the Minangkabau are known in Indonesia for their literary flair, business acumen, and egalitarian, democratic relationships between men and women. Sanday uses her repeated visits to West Sumatra in the closing decades of the twentieth century as the basis for a new definition of matriarchy. From the vantage point of daily life in villages, especially one where she developed close personal ties, Sanday's narrative is centered on how the Minangkabau conceive of their world and think humans should behave, along with the practices and rituals they claim uphold their matriarchate. Women at the Center leaves the reader with a solid sense of the respect for women that permeates Minangkabau culture, and gives new life to the concept of matriarchy.

Re-Inventing Africa
Re-Inventing Africa

Author: Ifi Amadiume

Publisher: Zed Books

Published: 1997-12

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781856495349

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This book reveals how conventional anthropology has consistently imposed European ideas of the "natural" nuclear family, women as passive object, and class differences on a continent with a long history of women with power doing things differently. Amadiume argues for an end to anthropology and calls instead for a social history of Africa, by Africans.

How to Make the Matriarchy
How to Make the Matriarchy

Author: Maureen Devine-Ahl

Publisher:

Published: 2020-12-07

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9781636766072

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What will it take to achieve gender equality in our lifetime? This is the question that kicks off a curious and winding learning journey in How to Make the Matriarchy: The Power and Promise of Prioritizing Women. Maureen Devine-Ahl explores inspiring stories, cautionary tales, and takeaway lessons from around the world on what it will take to build a more gender-balanced future, and, in doing so, quickly learns that empowering women empowers humanity. By identifying four key areas of influence for women across the globe, Make the Matriarchy serves as a valuable source of wisdom, wit, and enlightenment for anyone curious about how we break through the remaining barriers to equality, and build a better society for us all. Not only does Devine-Ahl highlight the power and potential of building an inclusive society with women at the helm, she also provides ways in which all of us can support this endeavor in our every day lives. Make the Matriarchy is more than a rallying cry, it is a hymn of hope.

Love, Sexuality, and Matriarchy
Love, Sexuality, and Matriarchy

Author: Erich Fromm

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2024-02-27

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1504093119

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“[A] fascinating collection of essays” on the complicated relations between men and women from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Art of Loving (The New York Times Book Review). The renowned social psychologist delves deep into the fraught relationship between genders, drawing upon the influential insights of Bachofen, Freud, Marx, and Briffault. Not primarily interested in the existence of anatomical and biological differences between the sexes, Fromm instead analyzes how these differences have been made use of throughout human history. Drawing from Bachofen’s Mother Right, Fromm expounds on how matriarchal and patriarchal social structures determine relations between the sexes in essential ways, and how they are shaped by the dominant orientation of the social character at any given time. He posits that the most important question concerning gender relations is which characterological orientation determines human relationships: love or hate, love of life or fascination with force. Thus, it will not be gender conflict that will determine humanity’s future but whether we opt for love of life or love of death. “As these essays show, Fromm was a wide-ranging thinker whose writings sometimes manifested brilliant insights or practical wisdom.” —Kirkus Reviews

Matriarchy and the Goddess Culture
Matriarchy and the Goddess Culture

Author: R. K. Fisher

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-12-02

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 9781981356683

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What happened when women ruled the world? There are many questions about the Old Culture - a culture even before history was written. Whatever happened to the Great Goddess? When did patriarchy start? How did women become objectified? This book is about the Journey of ancient women with their many glories and challenges. It talks about the gender partitioning which still survived in some cultures today, women as warriors, advisers, goddesses and properties. Chapters included are: -The Goddess Paradigm -Women Warrior -Dethroning the Queen of Heaven -The Queen in Exile Written with a Mathematician's precision and a Historian's curiosity, Time Maps covers over millennia worth of developments & impacts of civilizations, migrations, leaders and continents. Illuminating concepts of societies, dynasties, heroes, kings and eras through incisive and thorough research, looking at ideas, theories & world views with a sense of wonder and delight.

Myth, Matriarchy and Modernity
Myth, Matriarchy and Modernity

Author: Peter Davies

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2010-02-26

Total Pages: 475

ISBN-13: 3110227096

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This study explores the prevalence in German culture of myths about ancient matriarchal societies, discussing their presence in left and right wing politics, feminist and antifeminist writing, sociology, psychoanalysis and literary production. By tracing the influence of the works of the Swiss jurist and theorist of matriarchy, Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–1887), and the controversies about the reception and interpretation of his work, this study shows how debate about the matriarchal origins of culture was inextricably linked with anxieties about modernity and gender identities at the turn of the twentieth century. By moving beyond the discussion of canonical authors and taking seriously the scope of the discussion, it becomes clear that it is not possible to reduce matriarchal theories to any particular political ideology; instead, they function as a mythic counterdiscourse to a modernity conceived as oppressive, rational and masculine. Writers considered include Ludwig Klages, Hofmannsthal, Kafka, Hauptmann, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Sir Galahad, Clara Viebig, Mathilde Vaerting, Thomas Mann, Elisabeth Langgässer, Ilse Langner, Otto Gross, Franz Werfel, and many others.

Matriarchal Societies
Matriarchal Societies

Author: Heide Göttner-Abendroth

Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers

Published: 2013-09-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781433125126

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This book presents the results of Heide Goettner-Abendroth's pioneering research in the field of modern matriarchal studies, based on a new definition of «matriarchy» as true gender-egalitarian societies. This new perspective on matriarchal societies is developed step by step by the analysis of extant indigenous cultures in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

Through Mama's Eyes
Through Mama's Eyes

Author: Cheylon Woods

Publisher: University of Louisiana

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 9781946160744

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Through Mama's Eyes: Unique Perspectives in Southern Matriarchy looks at the concept of Southern matriarchy and how it has influenced American society. In 2016, the Ernest J. Gaines Center hosted a public program that explored the way women use physical space in literature. That program created many discussions of how the term matriarch is understood and applied, especially in the southern regions of the United States. Southern matriarchy is something that has been idolized and parodied in popular formats, such as movies and film, and the purpose of this book is to explore all of the faceted interpretations of southern matriarchy and its impact on our society. This book contains 17 interdisciplinary essays that each look at the way standard tropes of southern matriarchy are interpreted and challenged through literature, history, and the sciences. Like the program that inspired the book, each essay can be used as an invitation to engage in deeper conversations and research about southern matriarchy and its perceptions as a whole. This book is a compilation of curiosity and intrigue surrounding a societal structure that has influenced so many aspects of so many cultures across America--the Southern Matriarch.

Tyrants of Matriarchy
Tyrants of Matriarchy

Author: Stephen Jarosek

Publisher:

Published: 2021-07-15

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 9780977526130

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The edifice of feminist theory stands on the myth of patriarchal oppression. In dispensing with this myth, Stephen Jarosek shows that feminism is a bankrupt ideology that has never been substantiated. He factors in emerging developments in the life and cognitive sciences, to show that women never were the helpless victims as promulgated in the feminist narrative. New interpretations in culture, meaning, neural plasticity and the mind-body problem provide perspectives that established life-science narratives cannot. These developments shed a fresh light on women's agency, and the important part that women have always played in cultural destiny. In the context of an emerging synthesis in the life sciences, the author demonstrates that feminist narratives are not impartial descriptions of reality as it is, but solipsistic projections of feminists' own sexism. He describes the different ways in which Matriarchy and Patriarchy contribute to cultural evolution. Feminism has disrupted the balance, and has wrought considerable damage to everything that our cultures stood for. As we bear witness to society in decay, we see that behind it all, it was feminism and its industries occupying the driver's seat.

A Terrible Matriarchy
A Terrible Matriarchy

Author: Easterine Kire

Publisher: Zubaan

Published: 2007-12-01

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 8194721881

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“I was the youngest in a family of five children. I sometimes felt I was an afterthought, and maybe Father and Mother didn’t quite know what to do with me. Also, because I was a girl after four boys they never seemed to be sure whether to buy me girls’ clothing or let me wear leftover boys’ clothing.” Young Dielieno is five years old when she is sent off to live with her disciplinarian grandmother who wants her to grow up to be a good Naga wife and mother. According to Grandmother, girls didn’t need an education, they didn’t need love and affection or time to play or even a good piece of meat with their gravy! Naturally Dielieno hates her with a vengeance. This is the evocative tale of a young girl growing up in a traditional society in India’s Northeast, which is in the midst of tremendous change. Easterine Kire writes about a place and a people that she knows well and is a part of and brings to the storytelling a lyrical beauty which can on occasion chill the reader with its realistic portrayals of the spirits of the dead that inhabit the quiet hills and valleys of Nagaland.