Matriarchy Is Having a Moment. Why?
Like your worst boss, the patriarchy has spent centuries failing upwards. Who — or what — is going to stop it?
The term keeps popping up. Matriarchy, matriarchy, matriarchy.
Comments like, “Can’t wait until the matriarchy is here” and “When do we start building the matriarchy?” in response to posts about everything from the Iran war to the recent documentary “Inside the Manosphere,” a viral Netflix hit by the Emmy-nominated filmmaker Louis Theroux.
Earlier this year, the writer Gabrielle Blair published an essay on her Substack entitled “Males Are the Secondary Sex,” in which she argued (very convincingly) that it’s time to embrace a matriarchy because women should have been running things all along. Then, because it’s 2026, she chopped her essay into bitesize pieces and published it on Instagram, where 132,000 people shared it, myself included. The result was many, many responses along the lines of: “OMG. I’ve been radicalized.” (Admittedly, these were mostly from women; others complained. One commenter dismissed it as “feminist drivel.”)
This is an anecdotal way of saying that “matriarchy” is everywhere. But the data proves the point: In the U.S., Google searches for “matriarchy vs patriarchy” have risen 20% in the past year. Searches for the term “matrifocal,” a domestic arrangement in which men don’t (or barely) feature, have risen 1,050%. On TikTok, there are almost 42,000 posts on subjects such as “How to Build a Matriarchy” and many, many memes with titles like, “A Matriarchy Would Never.”
In short, matriarchy — a hitherto pretty obscure term which describes a society in which women are in charge — is having a moment. Why?
Josie Cox
Delicate, a little stupid, in need of protection
To go forward, first we must go back.
The journalist Angela Saini, the author of “The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality,” has written that the first signs of patriarchal rule appeared just 5,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia (an area that includes parts of Iraq, Syria and Turkey), where tablets show rulers created “detailed lists of population” in an effort to understand what resources they had available to them to defend the state. “Over time, young women were expected to focus on having more and more babies, especially sons who would grow up to fight,” writes Saini. Consequently, childcare — and staying at home to perform it — became the priority.
To put some context around it, homo sapiens first emerged around 300,000 years ago, which means that for, oh, 295,000 years or so, the sexes may have been fairly equal, taking on their fair share of work both inside and outside the home. In fact, a 2023 study suggests that the very idea of “man the hunter” is fiction: In 391 foraging societies across the world from the 1800s to present day, women were hunters as well as gatherers.
In Europe, women’s inferiority wasn’t enshrined into law until around 1066, according to the author Philippa Gregory in her book “Normal Women,” who explains that after their conquest of Britain, the Normans took land from women and made them the property of their fathers and husbands. Even then, women participated fully in society, working, inheriting property and even earning equal wages — they were by no means confined to the home. They often took on work as casual laborers while maintaining responsibility for their home, including farming their land and selling the goods it yielded at market. A 14th century proverb goes: “A household will survive without the husbandman, but not without the goodwife.”
Over time, the idea of women as delicate, a little stupid, and in need of protection by men grew. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, it was clear that “good” women stayed firmly inside the home.
But over time, the idea of women as delicate, a little stupid, and in need of protection by men grew. By the time of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, it was clear that “good” women stayed firmly inside the home. Meanwhile, concepts like the “breadwinner wage” — the idea that men should earn twice as much as women — reinforced women’s status as second-class citizens. The French political economist Jean Baptiste Say, who spread the idea in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, asserted that “since a woman’s economic needs were met by her husband, she was not disadvantaged if her wage was less,” writes Gregory.
By the 19th century, men firmly controlled both the public and private realms. Property — which included wives and daughters — passed down the male line by default. Mostly out of sight, women ran the home, which allowed men to move into the visible public sphere for work — and thus, the capitalist system functioned. Of course the problem was that the women’s contributions in the form of invisible, unpaid labor were deemed of little value and consequence, while the earned income brought in by the man — well, that was power.
That has continued, apart from a few notable events (the world wars), ever since.
Something has gone horribly, horribly wrong
But events lately have indicated that something in that capitalist system has gone horribly, horribly wrong. Globally, the delta between rich and poor is growing at astronomical rates. As oil prices spike, millennials are facing, according to at least one writer, “the scariest financial future of any generation since the Great Depression.” The war in Iran which has caused global economic shocks, has been described by Jason Miller, a professor in supply chain management at Michigan State University, as “the largest disruption of crude oil and refined products that we’ve ever seen in history.”
Add to this (or possibly because of this), a manosphere that has gone from a few insecure teenagers on a 4chan message board to a full-fledged social movement. At the same time, a parade of public figures (many laid bare in the Epstein files) have committed horrifying acts of aggression towards women and girls with apparent impunity, drawing attention to what men — even the ones we think we know — might be capable of.
The growing “masculinism” movement rejects the advances of feminism and seeks to reassert the primacy of men, the journalist Helen Lewis explains in a cover story for The Atlantic, in which she meets Doug Wilson, Pete Hegseth’s favourite pastor. Wilson, a prominent masculinist, has been outspoken in his hope of repealing the 19th Amendment, which guarantees American women the vote; he has also said that “husbands should have dominion over misbehaving wives’ weight, spending habits, and choice of television programs.”
The kick in the teeth, for me, is that Wilson’s hope of abolishing women’s hard-won democratic rights isn’t even a priority for him: “We have bigger fish to fry,” he tells Lewis. Because, as she points out, he and his brethren are currently busy spreading their message — feminism has gone too far; it’s time for women to shut up — to an increasingly divided group of right-wing voters. And it’s working. “Masculinism has become the single most important force uniting the American right,” Lewis writes.
There was a moment in 2024, as Dominique Pelicot and his dozens of co-conspirators trooped, day after day, into court in Avignon to defend themselves against allegations of rape — they were all found guilty — when the familiar refrain, “not all men” resurfaced on social media. Pelicot’s co-defendants included a supermarket clerk, a former fire officer, a father who had given up work to care for his son, a community nurse and someone who had hoped to train as a pastor. “Not all men,” sure — but here was evidence that “the everyman” was absolutely capable of unspeakable violence against women.
“Not all men,” sure — but here was evidence that “the everyman” was absolutely capable of unspeakable violence against women.
The thing is, the Pelicot atrocities were not one-of-a-kind. There was the British man who pleaded guilty to drugging and raping his wife over a period of 13 years. The Alexander brothers who were found to have drugged and assaulted women over decades. There was CNN’s extraordinary story of online communities of men swapping advice on how to assault their wives after drugging them. It’s a lot to take in.
Given all that’s happening, it’s hardly surprising that women appear to be dreaming of a life in which they call the shots. Possibly even of a life without men. After all, when presented with the hypothetical of whether a woman would rather encounter a bear or a man in the woods, the answer is either clear-cut (a bear, please) or asterisked (a man, but one who won’t attack me). Either way, it’s not a good look.
Caroline Fairchild
Women in charge?
Must matriarchy be women in charge? Not necessarily.
The German academic Heide Göttner-Abendroth, who has been described as “the mother of modern matriarchal studies,” has cautioned against the definition of matriarchy as “domination” by women. “The only reason to understand it in this way is that it sounds parallel to ‘patriarchy,’” she has written. “The Greek word “arché” has a double meaning. It means ‘beginning’ as well as domination.’ Therefore, we can translate ‘matriarchy’ accurately as ‘the mothers from the beginning,’” writes Göttner-Abendroth. “‘Patriarchy,’ on the other hand, translates correctly as ‘domination of the fathers.'” In other words, a matriarchy isn’t just a patriarchy but with women in charge: It’s a total reshuffling of society.
A matriarchy isn’t just a patriarchy but with women in charge: It’s a total reshuffling of society.
Göttner-Abendroth has credited the Swiss scholar, Johann Jakob Bachofen, with popularizing the notion of the matriarchy. In his catchily-titled 1861 book “Mother Right: A Study of the Religious and Juridical Aspects of Gynecocracy in the Ancient World,” Bachofen cited examples from the natural world, including bees, to argue that the patriarchy is unnatural; an aberration. (Some of Bachofen’s ideas would go berserk on modern Instagram: “Nature did not endow a woman with sensuous beauty only for her to wilt away in the arms of one man,” he wrote.)
There are many good, functioning examples of a matriarchy. Societies like the Nairs of southern Kerala followed matrilineal laws of succession until as late as the 1970s. Families were structured around a single female ancestor, with children inheriting assets passed down by their mothers and maternal uncles. Male heads, known as Karnovars, were appointed to oversee the matrilineal law of succession — although the rule governing this practice was abolished in 1975 after a rise in family disputes created by the male Karnovars giving their own children preferential treatment (yes, the only men in charge ruined it for everyone). Many families in the region still practice matrilineal inheritance.
So if not “domination,” then what? Matriarchal societies, Göttner-Abendroth has argued, are “societies of reciprocity” where goods are distributed down lines of (maternal) kinship. “This system prevents goods from being accumulated by one special person or one special group.” (Eyes on you: Elon, Mark, Jeff, Harvey.)
They are matrilineal, meaning that names are passed down the female line and married women stay with their families — as opposed to being shuffled out into the husband’s family, often a situation ripe for abuse and unhappiness. Finally, they are egalitarian, operating under a “principle of consensus.” Democracy, without temper tantrums about voter fraud.
Above all, matriarchies are centered around care. “Under patriarchy, caregiving is treated like a weakness,” wrote Blair. “It’s often unpaid and not valued. Under matriarchy, caregiving is central — everything is built around care — which ensures everyone thrives; children, the elderly, and everyone in between (yes, even men!).”
Caroline Fairchild
Meet me at the mommune
In some corners of the world, variations on these ideas are already being put into action. My friends and I often remind one another of a 2018 Guardian article about “mommunes,” where single women raise their children together (devastatingly, this surprisingly reasonable 20-bedroom castle on the Scottish Isle of Rum, which my mommune was eyeing, has been sold). In South Korea, the 4B movement is rejecting men altogether — and with it, marriage, dating, sex and children. All-women communities keep popping up, like the Bird’s Nest in Texas — and people keep writing and reading about them,
Wars raging; social divisions worsening; evidence of short-term profiteering taking precedence over the long-term safety of the human race; headlines about violence against women that keep on coming. Like your worst boss, the patriarchy has spent years failing upwards.
Who — or what — is going to put a stop to it? Maybe matriarchy is the answer.
