September 25, 2003
Awakened Woman's Circle is working for peace
Thoughts on the Congress on Matriarchies
A letter from Luxembourg by Genevieve Vaughan
Dear Friends
I just got back from a wonderful conference in Luxembourg on matriarchal societies and I wanted to tell you about it. You can also read about it at www.congress-matriarchal-studies.com I wish you all had been there. The organizer was Heidi Gottner -Abendroth from the Hagia institute in Germany and the conference was actually sponsored by the ministry of women in Luxembourg. It was held in a large modern international conference center in a 'hemicycle' -- a semi circular room.
The international conference united activists and academics, anthropologists and archaeologists, investigators into feminist medicine, spirituality, mythology etc. The program I have here in hand is in German which I don't read so my info may be not completely correct. There was translation into several languages including English -- though it was not always intelligible. The notes I took and which I am using to tell you about the conference were also incomplete. The main sense I have from the conference and the reason I want to write to you about it is that if this kind of validation of the existence of matriarchies (both in pre history and in the present) can be spread, and if the connection between matriarchies and peaceful, abundant and egalitarian ways of living can be made, we can have an alternative 'vision' ready for our use that will really help in diminishing the hegemony of patriarchy. This was pretty much the conscious intention of the conference itself as I understood from what Heidi said -- but the translation of her speech was particularly terrible.. It was made quite clear from the beginning that by 'matriarchy' no one was intending a mirror image of patriarchy. Instead words like 'woman-centered', 'gylanic', 'matrifocal', 'matristic' or the more specific terms 'matrilinear' or 'matrilocal' were used. I would say that mothering is the principle of matriarchy. Doesn't that give an approach that is different from essentialism? The values of mothering are the values that provide food and care for all, respect for the other, collective decision making and problem solving. That does not mean that women cannot have other values or act in non mothering ways especially when they are living in a system of patriarchal capitalism. Claudia von Werlhof began by saying that patriarchy is a derivative, not an originary system. I think that is a very important thing for everyone to realize. Peggy Sanday from the US talked about the Minangkabau, a matriarchal society of 4 million people in West Sumatra. Then there was a paper by Dr Ruxian Yan on the Musuo, the Chinese matriarchal society now numbering only about 40,000 people. There was also a film about them. There was another paper by Dr Shanshan Du which was read by someone else because she was unable to come. Her book Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs is about the Lahu people of Southwest China.. Dr Malika Grasshoff is an indigenous Kabyl Berber and she talked about the women's magic she learned while living with her people in Algeria. In many of these examples you can understand that the societies are undergoing transition towards the more patriarchal forms that are widespread now (though Sanday says the Minangkabau are a stable matriarchy) In fact I believe most societies are a mixture. Dr Helene Claudot-Hawad told us about the Tuareg and their dynamics between polar opposites such as stillness and motion. It seems that the Tuareg have a war making exterior function between men and other groups, but a woman centered interior. I would explain the interaction between the two as the difference between a gift logic and an exchange logic. Exhange on the external would be not only trade but war or perhaps an exchange of 'raids' where the self interest of one group or tribe is pitted against that of the other. Peggy Sanday told us about a saying of the Minagkabau which was 'Making the weaker the stronger' and that seems to me to be the real problem that we all have to face. If mothering is other-oriented it is more open ended and vulnerable than self interested patriarchy which not only receives from the mothering people but takes from them in plunder and control and even destroys the motherers and those they care for, if it serves their purposes. Thus though mothering is more human and viable than dominance it is weaker. How do we make the weaker the stronger without turning mothering into dominance? without becoming the oppressor?
I think the way to do this is strangely enough by theory - understanding what is happening and re framing it in a non or anti patriarchal way. In fact Patriarchy dominates theoretically as well. Von Werlhof said that patriarchy is dominance by a system (in other words not just dominance by individual men). Part of this system as I see it is the pitting of men against each other to protect or control their vulnerable gift givers. I think by understanding this paradox we can find new ways of 'making the weaker the stronger' without domination. After all, the weak are only weak when they are placed in competition with the strong. We need to validate the 'weak' motherers and find or develop a system that validates them instead of patriarchy. If patriarchy is secondary and derived, it is also probable that the people practicing it are in conflict with themselves internally, their own internal human mothering patterns at odds with their external patriarchal ways. Therefore they might be brought into the mothering camp if their external patriarchal defenses can be circumvented and their internal gift patterns accessed and brought to consciousness. One way to do this is through theory. Perhaps that is why the door is guarded by patriarchal theories and de valuings of all kinds. Von Werlof said that the patriarchal left considers us 'esoteric'. Meanwhile the defects of patriarchy are becoming visible to all as they lead us towards global extinction. This conference on matriarchies was a wonderful step in the right direction away from the brink.
One useful contribution I think was an attempt by Shanshan Du to define four different types of matriarchies. They were 1) matricentric: a culture that highlights the maternal through symbolism and elevates the maternal above male. It is assymetrical but does not involve dominance. It is a variation of 2)gender complementarity: Here core values are placed on gender reciprocity, where genders are seen as drastically different but complementary. Cooperation is emphasized. Examples are the Ashanti, the Dahomey and the pre colonial Ibos in Nigeria. 3) Gender triviality: here gender is made insignificant through gender blindness. These cultures value both autonomy and sharing/nurturing. Examples are Vanatinai Islanders of New Guinea, Aka of West Congo and Akanabe of Japan. 4) Gender unity: (this is the one she studied most) These cultures minimize symbolic sex differences by incorporating both. Equality is fostered in the unity of the 2 sexes. Her main example is the Lahu people of the Tibetan highlands near China. They have twin gods depicted as joined entities Both men and women share identity. They are defined as adults only when they marry and become 2 entities in one.Singles are shamed. The husband is the midwife at the birth. Both man and woman are called the 'master of the household'. There are 3 pairs of village leader couples. Parental spirits are also seen in pairs. They also have a paired male and female Buddha.
Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen spoke about the Zapotecas in Juchitan in Mexico where work defines the gender. (not division of labor according to gender but division of gender according to labor??) The women are the traders while the men do production or wage work. Women are considered better with money than men. She says the women deal with money in a way that is different from capitalism. Goods are sold with the sense of the source and in order to create relationships and prestige. There are festivals of recognition and reciprocity. Their matrilocal tradition fights pretty successfully against globalization. (What about this as a solution to 'making the weaker the stronger'? The women use exchange to satisfy needs and to create relationships, not to make profit, i.e. not for the economic prestige and domination.)
As I said in my book (For Giving, a Feminist Criticism of Exchange), I think the exchange economy prejudices us towards its values. Thus 'equality' seems to be a value when applied to the genders in capitalism. What we actually want when we use the word 'equality' is appreciation for qualities and qualitative differences of both genders without domination of one on the other. It is the patriarchal system that imposes the criterion of equality to a patriarchal standard. Giving without getting something back is one face of exploitation. However it is also the positive basis of the gift. It is only the co existence of gift giving with exchange that sucks gift giving into the market system and victimizes it, makes it 'weaker'. Actually it is the principle of life but it needs its own context, and the abundance which it creates needs to be fed back into the gift culture and not taken away into the market, siphoned off as profit or plunder, creating scarcity. Instead of being made weaker by the market, gift giving needs to be made stronger.
I think the idea of the gift economy and the gift logic can be of help in the study of matriarchies and I hope that the people who came to the conference will read some of the articles I took there. Gift giving is just much more fertile and creative than we have imagined and the gift logic of communication is fundamental in forming communities -- and determining what kinds of communities we form.
There were a number of other speakers but I can not give you a run down of every one. Riane Eisler author of The Chalice and the Blade was supposed to come but did not though someone read her contribution. A number of others beginning with Joan Marler, Maria Gimbutas' collaborator and continuer, talked about the ancient goddess cultures as matriarchal. One talk I particularly liked was by a man Michael Dames who talked about the goddess images in the landscape. He is the author of a book on Silbury Hill at Avebury in England, which Frieda lent me before I went there the first time years ago. Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum talked about the African origin of the Goddess and the Black Madonnas that are still visible in Africa and Eurpoe.
If we can keep in our minds the idea of a humanity based on mothering, which for most of its history-pre history has been matriarchal, and has only recently been self colonized by a pernicious derivative system, patriarchy, we can 're dimension' (as they say in Italy) the hegemonic system we live under. Maybe we could see the international women's movement as the vanguard of global matriarchy-matriarchies(not hegemonic but open to all kinds of mother based social experiments) ready to spread their many wings as globalizing patriarchy fails and falls.
Anyway as you can see I feel very optimistic about the conference itself and the possibilities it offers. We floated the idea of organizing a similar one in Austin next year. Whether or not that happens I believe this interdisciplinary, international academic-and-activist approach to matriarchy is the way to go to make peace on earth.
Love to all
Gen