Capitalist Patriarchy and The Negation
of Matriarchy
The Struggle for A "Deep"
Alternative
In: Vaughan, Genevieve (ed.): Women and
the Gift Economy. A Radically Different World View is Possible, Toronto
2007 (Inanna), pp. 139-153
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QUOTES Is this "New World Order" (Chomsky 1999;
Chossudovsky 1996) the "best of all possible worlds" that
western civilization pretends to develop? Or is the current development
of western civilization better defined as the peak and turning point
towards its final decline (Wallerstein 1974)? From the point of view of patriarchy, capitalism
is the epoch in which women, nature, and life in general are finally
successfully replaced by the artificial products of industry: gifts
by exchange; subsistence goods by commodities; local markets by
a world market; foreign cultures by western culture; concrete wealth-gifts
by money, machinery, and capital-the new abstract wealth; living
labour by machines; the brain/rational thinking by "artificial
intelligence"; women by sex-machines and "cyber-sex";
real mothers and/or their wombs by "mother-machines";
life energy by nuclear energy, chemistry, and bio-industry; and
LIFE in general BY "artificial life" like genetically
modified organisms (GMOs). The only problem that remains today consists
in how to "replace" the elements and the globe itself.
What Has to be Done What is needed is a re-version of a perverted parasitic society and (wo)mankind. The patriarchal "mother-father" as a "cyborg," which is the alchemical materialization of a metaphysical fiction has to fade away as soon as possible. We can accomplish this in a number of ways, mainly:
In her important book, For-Giving: A Feminist CRITICISM of Exchange, GENEVIEVE VAUGHAN states: "In order to reject patriarchal thinking we must be able to distinguish between it and something else: an alternative" (1977: 23). I fully identify with this statement as I, too, have tried "to think outside patriarchy" although being inside it most of the time. At the "First World Congress of Matriarchal Studies," held in Luxemburg in 2003, where Vaughan and I first met, she stated, "If we don't understand society in which we live we cannot change it; we do not know where the exit is!" Therefore, "we have to dismantle patriarchy." In this article, I would like to add to Vaughan's analysis of capitalist patriarchy and tackle the task of dismantling patriarchy.
A radically different worldview is necessary because
today we are observing global social, economic, ecological, and
political developments that are completely different from what they
should be. "Globalization" is obviously not a movement
toward more democracy, peace, general welfare, wealth, and ecological
sustainability, as its propagators are pretending everywhere. On
the contrary, the opposite is true. Never in history are so many
people dying from hunger and thirst, environmental destruction,
and war, most of them women and children. Never in history have
so many people been confined to poverty, income reduction, expulsion,
expropriation, and extreme exploitation, again, most of them women
and children. Never in history has technological progress led to
such intense and threatening destruction of the environment globally.
Never in history has the nuclear threat been so acute. Never in
history have the political systems been changing so clearly in the
direction of authoritarian, if not despotic rule in many parts of
the world. And never in history has such a tiny minority on the
globe been so incredibly rich and powerful.
For transnational corporations and their "global players"
today, we, and the planet, are nothing but their "play material." This situation can be called the "development
of underdevelopment" (Frank 1978). But this time underdevelopment
is not only taking place in the South, but also in the North. It
is the result of a "new colonization of the world" (Mies
2004) that did and does not happen inexplicably, but is actively
and aggressively promoted by governments as their general and apparently
"normal" policy, beginning in the 1980s of the twentieth
century. This policy consists in a "continuing process of primitive
accumulation" (Werlhof 1988) that leads to a forced economic
growth through the direct expropriation of the peoples of the globe
and the globe itself. The name of this policy is "neo-liberalism."
This new liberalism serves exclusively the interests of the corporations.
For the rest of humanity it means just the opposite, totalitarianism. Is this "New World Order" (Chomsky 1999; Chossudovsky 1996) the "best of all possible worlds" that western civilization pretends to develop? Or is the current development of western civilization better defined as the peak and turning point towards its final decline (Wallerstein 1974)?
Many people have provided descriptions of GLOBALIZATION
AS global crisis and its dynamics (CHOSSUDOVSKI 1966; HARD and NEGRI
2000; WALLERSTEIN 2004; ZIEGLER 2002). There seems to be "no
future"- astonishingly enough even for the global players themselves.
I call this situation west end (Werlhof
2002). WESTERN CIVILZACION IS IN ITS FINAL DECLINE GLOBALLY.
With the self-given "licence to loot" (Mies and Werlhof
2003; Werlhof 2000), the resources of the earth will come to an
end. The decline of resources is already underway. With the resulting
"resource wars" (Klare 2001)-the new global wars for oil
and water-we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the
"MODERN WORLD SYSTEM" AS AlOGICALl CONSEQUENCE. But, there is almost no deeper analysis of the
causes of this extraordinary situation or the dynamics that seem
to exclude any alternative. There is no real, no deeper explanation
of the world's dilemma and its causes (WERLHOF 2007). For example,
is the profit motive alone sufficient as an explanation? Why do
most people believe that human nature is nothing but ego-centric?
What about control and domination of nature? In what is it rooted? I suggest the reason why most people do not really know why THIS CRISIS IS happening is due to the fact that the left as well as the right, and the sciences in general, have never REALLY analyzed patriarchy. And not HAVING ANALYZED patriarchy also means not really understanding capitalism, because the two not only share a time of being together on this earth for 500 years now, but are deeply related to each other in a way that has not been understood by most people, even feminists. Therefore, it is time to take the necessary step of analyzing capitalist patriarchy from its roots and as a theoretical concept for the subsequent analysis of society. Only then can it be seen that patriarchy is much more than just a word for polemical purposes. It can instead be understood as a concept that explains the character of the entire social order in which we are living today, socialism included.
Recent studies of matriarchal societies and the development of patriarchy (see Göttner-Abendroth 2005) suggest mainly four things: The Genesis of Patriarchy Patriarchal society as we know it, did not exist
"as such" and independently from, or even before, matriarchal
society, but began to develop after the armed invasion, violent
conquest, and systematic destruction of matriarchal societies by
armed hordes that had lost their own originally matriarchal culture
after having been exposed to "catastrophic migration"
(forced migration due to climatic changes and other catastrophes).
This process is reported from the fifth millennium B.C. onwards-concerning
the "Kurgan" people and the Indo-European migrations in
general-and it occurred in China, India, the Middle East, North
and Central Africa, Europe, and the Americas as well (see Gimbutas
1994; Mies 2003). As patriarchal society, "as such," did
not exist, we need to examine the conditions that led to its development. The development of patriarchal society is related
to the invention of something that from then on has been called
"war," and patriarchy BECOMES dependent on the ongoing
existence of war(s) even in so-called "peace times." Without
war, the people of conquered communities and societies could easily
liberate themselves from their conquerors' rule. The
logic of patriarchy is thus the logic of war, which means that all
the social institutions invented by patriarchy are principally drawn
from war experiences. 1) Patriarchy invented a political
system based on the invention of the state, which meant the
hierarchical dominance of armed men over the conquered people and
the dominance of men over women, because women were at the centre
of pre-patriarchal society and were responsible for the maintenance
of its egalitarian principles. 2) Patriarchy invented an economy
based on the the plunder of other peoples' property, since then
called "private" property (privare
= to rob), and on an always more systematic exploitation of the
conquered, especially the women, because women in matriarchal society
had control over the means of production, were the producers and
distributors, the PROVIDERS of concrete
wealth-life, food, and security-and were responsible for the integration
of everyone into the community (Vaughan 1997). 3) Patriarchy invented a society
split into social classes, "races," generations, and "sexes."
This means, especially since then, that women were regarded as being
subject to men by nature, in order to prevent them from ever again
being able to re-establish a matriarchal society. 4) Patriarchy invented a "God-Father"
or "male creator-religion" based on the "great warrior,"
plunderer, proprietor, or "big man" (Godelier 1987), who
was considered able to give life and was legitimized to take it.
The Great Mother or Goddess was replaced by the idea and the ideology
of an omnipotent, violent, and jealous single God, an abstract patriarchal
"mother-father." 5) Patriarchy invented a technology
based on "war as the father of all things," namely by
beginning to transform the pre-patriarchal philosophy of alchemy
into a patriarchal one. This means that since then men have systematically
tried to use existing (female) knowledge about life and nature in
order to appropriate it, to pervert it into a means of control over
life and nature, finally, trying to replace life, women, and nature
themselves through "technological progress" (Werlhof 2004a),
the project of a "second creation." 6) Patriarchy invented a psychology
that defined the ways men could develop their "masculation"
(Vaughan 1977), and their competitive, ego-logical patriarchal individuality
(Girard 1992), opposing community, women, and nature. The patriarchal order of society thus involves a total break with the matriarchal or gift giving social rules, traditions, and taboos, which had existed from time immemorial, and the development of a "war system" (Werlhof 2004b). And even if there have been times and places that did not at all fit this picture, the development or "evolution" of patriarchy has, nevertheless, been continuous, and women could not prevent it from happening. This can be seen more clearly today than ever before. The Negation of
Matriarchy In patriarchal societies we can always find vestiges of former matriarchal societies-matriarchy as "second culture" (Genth 1996)-left over or newly re-organized after the patriarchs had started to deny the reality and quality of matriarchal society (Werlhof 2004b). This matriarchy as second culture can be observed everywhere, for example, in mother-child AND OTHER LOVE -relationships, and in gift giving generally (Vaughan 1997). It contradicts the patriarchal order, but also
helps it to exist, because a society without any matriarchal relations
could simply not survive. Therefore, patriarchies are always somehow
"mixed" societies, whether to a higher or lower degree,
and they are hiding this fact as much as they can-for obvious reasons.
But today it it is clear that patriarchy is trying to complete its
negation of matriarchy in order to replace
it WITH ITSELF, A "PURE" PATRIARCHY, as much as
possible. This destruction and the fading away of the second culture
in patriarchy, and of much of the still existing gift paradigm within
it, is one of the main reasons for the depth of the crisis of contemporary
civilization. The negation of matriarchy consists in presupposing
that there have never been any matriarchal societies; that patriarchal
society has existed from the beginnings of human life on earth;
and /or pretending that a violent and evil "rule of women"
had to be broken before patriarchal society could develop so-called
"civilization" and "progress." Due to this patriarchal
mythology, most people today still think that matriarchy never existed,
or that it meant "rule of women" instead of "rule
of men," which indeed was never the case in matriarchal society,
but may be so in patriarchal society instead. Most people, therefore,
do not understand that the terms "matriarchy" and "patriarchy"
are not just referring to men and women, or "male" and
"female," but to the character of the whole social order,
so that both men and women living in matriarchy have to be considered
"matriarchal," and likewise men and women living in patriarchy
have to be considered as principally "patriarchal" in
their thinking, acting, and feeling. The negation of matriarchy furthermore consists in:
The crucial significance of especially this last process of the transformation and substitution of nature and women has almost never been recognized. The "Gnostic"
Worldview of Patriarchy BY THE TIME, peoples' experiences with patriarchal
society, war, despotic rule, and ceaseless violence logically led
to a complete change in the general worldview, too. The Gnostic
worldview thus appeared (Sloterdijk and Macho 1991). Gnosis means
recognition: It is recognized that the world is "bad,"
"evil," "low," primitive, violent, sinful, and
not worth living in. A better, "higher," more developed,
"noble" and civilized world, therefore, is the ideal for
people living in patriarchy. However, this "higher" world
cannot be found on earth, even less so in the matriarchal past or
presence elsewhere. The "higher world" is thus perceived
as a metaphysical world that can only be envisioned through the
imagination. A metaphysical world beyond physics was not thought
of in matriarchal society. SO, the words mater and arché
together do not mean "rule of mothers," but instead mean,
"in the beginning the mother," life stems from mothers.
ARCHE IS BEGINNING and "uterus" (MARKALE 1984, 207). Therefore,
life, death, the mother, and the goddess, are always here in this
world, and they all belong to each other, so that there is neither
the need for, nor the idea of, another (metaphysical) world than
the one in which we live every day (Chattopadyaya 1973). In patriarchal society, on the contrary, another
world beyond the existing one had to be invented. SO, the words
pater and arché together do not simply mean "rule of
fathers," but, instead, "in the beginning the father"-
a word unknown in matriarchal times. Or, rather, life stems from
"fathers" instead of from mothers; fathers are men with
uteruses who are able to give life without needing women at all!
(The Pharaoh Echnaton, for example, had himself painted as a pregnant
man [see Wolf 1994]). Only on the basis of this fantasy would men
be legitimized to rule over those who are not "fathers,"
the people, and especially the mothers. The "father,"
therefore, is defined as somebody who is a ruling man and as such
not only able to take life, but also to give life. In patriarchy the word arché thus did not
only mean "beginning, origin, uterus," but also "rule"
and "domination," too. This second meaning of arché
did not exist before patriarchy, therefore, in matriarchy arché
could have never meant domination, much less mothers' or women's
rule. There simply was no domination, and therefore there was no
word for it. Etymology shows that 1) a matriarchal society in which
women were in power the way men are in patriarchal society never
existed, and that 2) the "father" in patriarchal society
has to be related to power as a system of domination, at least as
long as he cannot replace the mother. This means that the political system of patriarchal
society can be regarded as a first step in the direction of the
development of a pure, fully elaborated patriarchy, in which the
fathers would really be "men with uteruses" or with something
like "uterus-machines," who would then no longer need
to dominate, because they would be able to do without nature, women,
and matriarchal society. The political system of patriarchy would
only be needed for the period in which patriarchy moves toward its
final realization, toward a "full patriarchy," conceived
of as the end of history. From this point of view, history is only
the time in which patriarchy appeared and "evolved" until
it became one hundred percent reality. The patriarchal usurpation, destruction, and perversion
of the mother and the wish to replace her thus led to an early sort
of "science fiction": to the idea that what is only-and
absurdly-supposed, namely that life stems from the father and not
the mother, is considered even more real than what is experienced
every day, namely the opposite. This credo quia absurdum-I believe
in the absurd-of the early church-patriarchs, began from then on
its nearly uninterrupted career on earth. Gnostic metaphysics and the belief in another,
"higher" reality appeared everywhere, in every theological
as well as philosophical tradition until today. Since then the belief
in metaphysical assumptions has become much more important than
knowledge about the world in which we live, even more so in the
secularized modern sciences of today, as we shall see below. The historically new concept of the "father"
is a triple fiction: it imitates the fiction of a powerful patriarchal
"mother" and/or "goddess" and imagines to have
successfully replaced her. This way the "father" is defined
as a "patriarchal mother," the god as patriarchal goddess,
who-as a contradiction in itself-could never have been thought of
before. This shows that the father originally is not regarded
to be a man who relates to a woman with whom he has a child. This
type of a father, as we normally define him today, is much less
the "idea" of the father than the early fiction of a man
with a uterus. The reason for this "loss" in defining
the father is very simple: It has until now really been impossible
to have new life without women. But we know that biotechnology and genetic engineering are working hard to resolve patriarchy's main problem: the desire that only men should be the creators of life. Having to be born from women seems to be the biggest DISGRACE for patriarchal men and society (see Anders' 1994 description of the "shame of being born instead of being made"). Our actual "soft" understanding of the father who is still dependent on a mother proves every day that patriarchy in reality does not yet exist at all the way it is supposed to. The world-at least in this respect-basically still functions in a matriarchal way. From Idealism to
Materialism But the fiction is the program. The idea of patriarchy
has become its political and technological project. Patriarchy as
a society in which life stems from fathers and not from mothers
has to be artificially produced, or it will never really exist.
The project is this: life-or what is considered to be life-should
be born from or be made by men. And, only what men produce is considered
to be "real life" and to have a "value," as
if patriarchy had been realized already. This way patriarchy becomes not only a theory
(vision of God), but also a theology
(the logic, the true words of God, his creation by the word that
was "in the beginning"), a theo-gnosis
(proof of the existence of God), and a theophany
(God is appearing), and structurally theo-morphical
and theocratic. Furthermore, patriarchy seems to prove its entelechy
(its capacity to evolve its "naturally" given form to
its perfection) and its potential for eschatology (end and new beginning
of the world, death, and rebirth). Once all this is the case, even the system of
domination IS IMAGINED TO eventually be abolished, because there
would really be no alternative to patriarchy any longer.1 Only if/
when men become "real" fathers, will patriarchal society-in
the long run-not have to fear women and matriarchy or the gift economy
as an alternative any longer (Sombart 1991). Since Artistotle, patriarchs not only pretended
that their theory about life was true, even if they could not prove
it, but they started to do something about it. This is how the Gnostic
view became practical and "materialistic" in the patriarchal
sense of the word. From the patriarchal viewpoint material is mater
(matter), "mother-material," generally called "raw
material," which is GIVEN IN ORDER
to BE TRANSFORMED INTO patriarchal "life," being
a "resource" for "value-" or life-production,
something like a "mother-machine" (see Corea 1985). From
this perversion stems fetishism as the confusion between dead things
and living beings. This materialistic becoming of the Gnostic worldview,
nevertheless, did not mean a return from metaphysical adventures.
On the contrary, it meant trying to realize on earth what had been
imagined beyond it; Plato's "ideas," for example. The
Gnostic view, therefore, was not abolished. It became the program
for patriarchal society, instead. It is as if today, for example, the electronic
production of the "virtual world" were considered to be
the only "real world," and the real world were considered
to have already been replaced by the cyber world, continuing its
existence as the former real world only in imagination-so to say
as a new "metaphysical" world "beyond" the virtual
world. But this time metaphysics are no longer welcome. On the contrary,
they appear outmoded and old-fashioned, if not reactionary, because
they remember the natural world. This would be the real patriarchal
perversion! And it has entered the thinking of women as well, even
if they did not care much for the invention of machine-technology
(Genth 2002). But this form of so called "post-materialism"
can be found in many "gender-studies" that criticize,
for example, the discourse on "nature" as being "essentialist"
which means being metaphysical, because nature is supposed not to
exist in reality - any more! (Werlhof 2003; Bell and Klein 1996). In short, the Gnostic view, which is so typical
of all the other patriarchal ideologies until today, did not WORK
against patriarchy, though it correctly "recognized" many
of the evils that it brought to the world. For the conclusions drawn
from of this recognition were no longer oriented toward a matriarchal
world. The evils recognized by the Gnosis were not considered to
be those of a patriarchal society. They were considered, instead,
to be of society in general, of "the world," of people,
and even nature everywhere. The difference between a matriarchal
society and a patriarchal one, or between society and nature, or
between the ruling and the ruled, was no longer thought of. At that
time, patriarchy was already taken for granted. The Gnostic view had accepted THE State. It did
not question it any more, and those who could afford it tried to
flee its consequences and its ugliness. In this way, the two main
tendencies in thinking about patriarchal society came about: idealism
and materialism. The two should not therefore be regarded,
as usual, as pure contradictions, but as two sides of one coin,
the "Siamese twins" of patriarchy: the "materialistic"
side fighting actively against the lasting importance of "matter,"
the mater-mother, nature, the goddess, and life, in order to get
them under control, and the "idealistic" side propagating
the ideal of a motherless world, a purely patriarchal utopian paradise
that seems peaceful because it appears to have finally resolved
the contradictions with the material, matriarchal world or what
remains of it. Idealism thus proves to be no less violent than
materialism, because it is formulating the idea that became the
project of a material realization, which cannot be other than radically
violent. From then on nature and women were no longer respected
in their own subjectivity, beauty, truth, goodness, and strength,
their inventions, abilities, products and culture, their gifts
to the world since time immemorial. They were seen, instead, as
representing the "chaos," the "sin," and the
"evil" that had to necessarily be subjugated under and
transformed by the socio-economic-political-ideological-religious-technological
project of patriarchy. From this point of view, women and nature
had to be oppressed, exploited, expropriated, transformed, and destroyed
in a way that could be used as proof of male superiority, strength,
and creativity. Having defined patriarchy, what does this mean
for defining capitalism? From my analysis of patriarchy it follows
that capitalism and modernity, including so-called socialism, far
from being or becoming independent from patriarchy, are the latest
stage of patriarchy. My hypothesis is that patriarchy crystallizes
into capitalism. Capitalism is the period in which patriarchy becomes
really serious. Homo faber is supposed
to be finally replaced by "homo creator," a sort of secularized
God. This means that with capitalism there is a break
as well as a continuation in patriarchy. But both tend in the same
direction, namely fostering patriarchy. The logics of patriarchy
led straight to the modern epoch, because capitalism is the promise
to finally realize the futuristic Gnostic utopia materially and
on earth. It consists of the intent to produce a purely patriarchal
society, "cleaned" of all its matriarchal vestiges, and
propagated as a MALE-CREATED second
paradise, INCLUDING the INVENTION of a finally "good"
patriarchal "mother." Metaphysics are to become the new physics. This
is the propaganda of modern society as a whole, its politics, economy,
religion-especially in the form of Protestantism-and technology. Gnosticism becomes secularized. The content is
the same, but the program has become one of action. The times of
mere contemplation are fading away, the vita contemplativa is followed
by a new kind of vita activa (Arendt 1987). Since the Renaissance, the always increasing numbers
of inventors and colonizers, scientists and soldiers, entrepreneurs
and explorers, settlers and missionaries, merchants and money lenders
are the modern activists on their way to the proposed, second, man-made
and final paradise on earth (Rifkin 1998). This is the beginning of the "Great Transformation"
(Polanyi 1978) for which modern Europe became so famous. The new
epoch was for the most part not seen as a continuation of an earlier
one. It seemed, instead, to be the birth hour of a totally new society,
not bound to history any more, a society that would be able to solve
all the problems of mankind (indeed, not of womankind) for ever-like
the U.S. today. From the point of view of patriarchy, capitalism
is the epoch in which women, nature, and life in general are finally
successfully replaced by the artificial products of industry: gifts
by exchange; subsistence goods by commodities; local markets by
a world market; foreign cultures by western culture; concrete wealth-gifts
by money, machinery, and capital-the new abstract wealth; living
labour by machines; the brain/rational thinking by "artificial
intelligence"; women by sex-machines and "cyber-sex";
real mothers and/or their wombs by "mother-machines";
life energy by nuclear energy, chemistry, and bio-industry; and
LIFE in general BY "artificial life" like genetically
modified organisms (GMOs). The only problem that remains today consists
in how to "replace" the elements and the globe itself.
Therefore, technological progress, through the
development of modern sciences and the invention of the machine
as a totally new techno -system, is the logical backbone of the
modern patriarchal epoch. Patriarchy itself is progress, and all
"progress" today is patriarchal. It serves the project
of a materialization of metaphysical images via an industrial "life"-production
which I call the "alchemical system" in development, because
the idea behind it is as old as patriarchy and its first attempts
to progress used the methods of a patriarchally-modified "alchemy"
(Werlhof 2001). The invention of profit that could be drawn from
this adventure of the whole world's transformation convinced always
more people, mostly men. But many people, especially women, had
to be violently forced to participate in the new game. THE POLITICAL
MEANS CONSISTED IN processes of "original
accumulation" WHICH DEPRIVED THE PEASANTS OF THEIR MEANS
OF PRODUCTION AND THE WOMEN EVEN OF THE DISPOSAL OVER THEIR BODIES
- THROUGH THE SO CALLED "WITCH - HUNT" - by leaving nearly
no way to survive beyond capitalism (FEDERICI 2004). Through all this progress mother earth will be
more and more destroyed. Some of these fast
growing destructions are already irreversible, especially those
DUE TO nuclear and genetic MODIFICATIONS (Anders 1995; Chargaff
1988). Artificial death and artificial wealth-the violent
"nothing"- a lot of money, is all that is left. The earth
is on the way to being transformed into dead "capital,"
full of empty holes on the one side, and trash-hills for the next
billion years on the other. That all this is possible shows that most people
believe in the violent nihilism of patriarchy and its dangerous
delusion THAT has become "real." This astonishing fact
can only be understood when one considers that the "alchemical
wonders" patriarchy is promising, do not stem just from modern
times, but are prophecies already 5,000 years old. Therefore, the
destruction and desertification of the global ecology, including
the human one, has not led to a general panic. On the contrary,
it seems that, at least in the West, it is believed that only when
the natural world has gone, can the patriarchal one finally be constructed,
in all its glory, INSTEAD. Capitalism-as well as socialism- with its activism, optimism, positivism, rationality, and its irrational belief in patriarchy, world domination, money, science, technology, and violence, is not just capitalism, but has to be defined as "capitalist patriarchy" (and, by the way, not as "patriarchal capitalism" because there is no non-patriarchal capitalism). This epoch is still on the march because it has not yet reached its destination. Therefore, there is no post-capitalist, post-industrial, post-modern or post-materialist epoch in sight-unless capitalist patriarchy is stopped by a breakdown of its resources, technologies, markets, and money systems, by huge natural and or social catastrophes, or by an upheaval of the people who do not want to lose their lives, their planet, and the future of their children. If the "matter" of capitalism, its mater, its mothers, its women, and its matriarchal remains do not "obey" any more, and if nature fails to as well, only then will capitalist patriarchy disappear. And as capitalist patriarchy is obviously not a society for eternity, all this may well be happening today already.
What Has to be Recognized The alternative to capitalist patriarchy has
to be a "deep" one, or it will fail. First of all, the
"roots" of this war system will have to be recognized
at all levels of society, individual life, history, and the globe.
This will occur like a huge transdisciplinary research-project of
and for the people. Out of this experience, the alternative will
be a systematically non-capitalist and non-patriarchal one. It will
be based on the remains of the "second culture" of matriarchy
and of the gift-paradigm within patriarchal society, because they
offer a body of concrete experiences people have been familiar with
ever since humankind began on earth. Even though these have been
underestimated, hidden and made invisible to most of us, they can
be made conscious again, and this is happening already in many parts
of the world (see Bennholdt-Thomsen, von Werlhof and Faraclas 2001). Even if it appears overwhelming to overcome not
only 500 years of modernity, but 5,000 years of patriarchal traditions,
this is actually very little in comparison to the hundreds of thousands
of years of human experiences outside patriarchy that we have to
draw upon. What Has to be Done What is needed is a re-version of a perverted parasitic society and (wo)mankind. The patriarchal "mother-father" as a "cyborg," which is the alchemical materialization of a metaphysical fiction has to fade away as soon as possible. We can accomplish this in a number of ways, mainly: ode-constructing patriarchal institutions, policies,
economies, technologies, and ideologies;
We need to be able to perceive an alternative to capitalist patriarchy and see that this alternative is already in the making. Soon we will not be able to understand how or believe that men and women supported and even admired such a destructive delusion for such a long time!
Many alternative movements in the whole world
are already in this process, for historical reasons most of them
initiated by the global South (KUMAR 2007) and most of them guided
by women. This is the case because the South and women have and
had to bear most of the negative consequences of patriarchy and
especially capitalist patriarchy. This is why they are at the forefront
of the new movements. Additionally, for women it is still much easier
to remember matriarchal society and culture, and gift giving, because
the remains of matriarchal culture and practices have for the most
part been maintained by them. The way into a post-patriarchal society,
therefore, is much more logical and visible for women than for men.
The thinking, acting, and feeling of women, especially of poor women
in the South, often shows a high level of dissonance with western
globalization and culture. They defend life on "two fronts"
of the conflict: against the war system of capitalist patriarchy
and in favour of a new society (Bennholdt-Thomsen, Werlhof and Faraclas
2001; Werlhof 1985, 1991, 1996). At the University of Innsbruck a new international
research project is planned, the title of which is "On the
Way to a New Civilization? EXAMPLES OF…" For this research
project, current alternative movements worldwide will be compared.
Movements that are active on only one of the "two fronts"
we are facing today, or that do not address the most important aspects
and dimensions of life under patriarchal attack, will find themselves
in crisis, sooner or later. This is still the case with many movements
in the North and of those traditionally guided by men (WERLHOF 2007). It seems as if a larger and deeper movement in
the North will only be possible when the illusions of moving upward
within the system have been lost and the daily conditions of life
have worsened further. But, in the meantime, extremists of the far
right and religious "fundamentalists" everywhere are preparing
their field of action, too. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Claudia von Werlhof is a women's studies professor in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. She has published numerous articles and books on a feminist theory of society, critiques of and alternatives to capitalism, and on globalization and patriarchy. Her most recent publications are There is An Alternative: Subsistence and Worldwide Resistance to Corporate Globalization (2001), "Using, Producing and Replacing Life? Alchemy as Theory and Practice in Capitalism" (2004), "The 'Zapatistas', the Indigenous Civilization, the Question of Matriarchy and the West" (2005), AND "NO CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM WITHOUT A CRITIQUE OF PATRIARCHY! WHY THE LEFT IS NO ALTERNATIVE"(2007). Notes References Anders, Günther. 1995 [1956]. Die Antiquiertheit
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