A matriarchy would be better than a patriarchy for women?

Also stats show female led companies do 30% better and women do not over-estimate profit for the flashy sales pitch - i.e they are realistic and have done their homework. When I heard that the other week I was not at all surprised.

I do think women need men for some things, but I do not agree that we should be forced to co-habit with them (it is far more dangerous for women than men to have relationships and live with a man). I don't really believe that men do things women can't and I feel progress to get women into STEM and other well paid careers has been hugely slow and still no where near parity.

It's an interesting idea whether women become competitive around men (as in trying to be more attractive to them by not being a geek/being preoccupied with appearance) which is what the single sex schooling benefiting girls also suggests - if followed into workplace, does this mean women do this in work because usually it is a patriarchal structure?

I've often thought this.

There have been interesting studies into group behaviour with more or less women involved.

Company's with more women in the leadership teams tend to be more stable with gradual consistent growth. With more men they tend to be more likely to both be greatly successful - OR go bankrupt.

It makes me think that a matriarchal society might be more supporting and collaborative but less risky which could lead to innovation.

Don't forget other observed results. Girls who go to single sex schools often gain a host of advantages without the effect of influence of boys. So women can't be that bad together if it's better then mixed sex.

I certainly think that if men are socialised In a female lead way, the negative effects of testosterone might be mitigated. Negative 'male ' testosterone driven behaviour (violence, anger, overly sexual behavior) will be less acceptable, possibly leading to less sexual and violent crime. I hope it would lead to more severe sentencing for DV, sexual crimes.

The question is, without the pressure/fear of punishment from men, would women's behaviour change. Women aren't as violent as men. Is this solely because of testosterone or is it social? Maybe we are less violent because it's inherently more risky for us to have physical altercation. Would we become more violent? I doubt it, or certainly not to the extent of a male cohort in the same situation. I think a matriarchy would be less violent overall.

I saw a film once where women ran the world. Then men were exiled to a primitive compound with the exception of a lucky few who were permanent 'breeder'. The women lived in futuristic communal luxury. The women in general acted like men were these strange scary creatures to stay away from, with their violent ways. I must say that part appealed to me some what. The moral was some guff about the women being wrong to treat the men like that and everyone is better together but I wasn't convinced.

Anyone remember the 2 Ronnies sketch "The worm that turned"? I was only a little kid but I seem to think that was basically reversing the gender stereotypes.

Whilst I think a matriarchal society probably would be better for women, I think something in the middle would be better for all. Ultimately, I can't see a world where this would happen. But if our world leaders were 50/50 men and women, I think we would see a very different world.

@OneAmberFinch bonobos are matriarchical and famously females avoid conflict with each other with a mutual masturbation - literally making love not war - while the men run around on the floor of the jungle making a racket and threatening each other with branches. Weirdly I posted about that today on here because the upshot is that the male bonobos show more violence in total than chimps, but less severe violence (murder etc) and they don't sexually assault the females at all unlike the chimps.

Which kind of answers your question too @OutsideLookingOut - the issue with the patriarchy is that men often feel they have no need to answer to anyone and so can do what they like (necromancy, peadophilia, rape - abusing weaker humans and their power for humiliation and pain to others). Matriarchies seem to focus on the collective, meaning caring roles being more desirable than non-useful anger driven ones. I suspect that then self-selects the mates and the overly violent males don't get partners to continue their genetics.

This pretty sums up my thoughts.

I'm trying to think of what animal species are matriarchies? I can only think of ones which have the model that the females live in a group (potentially with hierarchy within that group e.g. alpha females) and the males live as loners or in small groups and occasionally come in to mate with the women and then leave. With fierce intra-male fighting in between. I think this is sort of like a harem situation, but it seems to work in practice.

I'm not sure if I can think of any where the males and females live together in equal numbers and the females are "in charge".

Maybe this aligns with OP's theory and my question about economics - a workable matriarchy could be collectivist within the female society only, with the women providing for themselves and their children and the men living outside society and competing violently for the right to reproduce. So, probably not fewer wars!

A world where motherhood is put on a pedestal would not be a better place for childless/childfree women.

I'm not sure if it is the word "conformity" that is bothering me as it suggests strictness, rules and loss of independence. I think in my version, it would be more focused on making the men work in more caring roles, than consumer driven ones, for example. Begining with a shift in pay away from high paid sales execs to nursing and care roles. If you switched the pays you'd attract more men into caring roles (so they keep saying) but even if it didn't rewarding looking after each other over conning each other sets a much healthier community outlook when we spend our lives working.

There's no real consensus on 'evolution' in this area but it's interesting that other highly intelligent species that experience menopause are matriarchal societies.

The women that Charles 2nd knew probably didn't like each other because he was sleeping with all of them.

Has not is.

If you realise matriarchy as being principally concerned with the protection and wellbeing of children / future generations, which is of course traditionally been a primary female focus…it all starts to make a bit more sense. And yes it would be better, I think.

A matriarchy would need to be more extreme than a patriarchy. Patriarchy has formed naturally through our evolution, it's the natural state. Most species have a dominant sex, and in most it's male. Even in a matriarchy women would still be the ones who got pregant and men would still be the ones who were stronger.

I don't think a matriarchy would be better, it would just bring a separate set of problems. It would be interesting to see how the transgender thing played out, I can't see men ever getting particularly bothered about transmen in their changing rooms because they'd still be stronger than them. Extremism is the problem. It's better to have a system that works for everyone rather than switch between systems that punish half the population.

Given the increase in women in positions of power, it's clear that they are no better than men in positions of power. Better in some ways, worse in others, just as bad overall.

If you're talking about a fantasy world where every role is reversed, i.e. women are stronger and men get pregnant, yes it would be called a matriarchy but it would literally just be the opposite of it now.

I assume OP means they would be more conforming because women would enforce the conformity (which might be to a different standard than we see today). Even your comment shows this I think - a women-led society would be very interested in bringing the bottom up (e.g. through interventions in impoverished or wartorn countries). We've traditionally done that through things like the welfare state, minimum wage, support for destitute families etc - and with social norms against "tall poppies" who take money away from the deserving poor. Source: see any Mumsnet thread about someone daring to earn more than £30k a year - imagine if that energy was country-wide!

I'm not sure why they would need to be more conforming - Trump is trying all that trad wife rubbish and most women aren't fooled that not getting an education is progress. We don't need to go backwards, just cut out making more munitions globally and change the focus. Imagine getting infrastructure into Syria and other war torn countries, to help them settle and rebuild their lovely countries. The wars there can happen anywhere if we continue down the road that violence is some sort of necessary evil.

I am also assuming you aren't gettting rid of men totally? Just finding new things for the army to do (maybe helping infrastructure building in other countries alongside other countries). Most people in UK wouldn't have to change their jobs at all and no need to "rank" women.

We don't know though, do we? We do know that men can't.
Not many other options.

I agree, I’m quite bemused by the thought that all women will, as a whole, dedicate themselves to a goodwill action plan. Comments like these highlight how much women over estimate other women. Over the years I have come across plenty of women who are there just for themselves, don’t care about others and are really hard and shrewd. Whilst other men I have met are easily more compassionate and generous. Why would anyone think that the sweet compassionate women of the world are the ones to occupy positions of power and influence under a matriarchy? Any more than men under a patriarchy?

Read her post again.
She was initially horrified ... but then she thought about.

She said there must be ways to 'silence genes'.

🤣

How/ why would all that happen though?
Wars and the weapons they are fought with are about power, do you think female leaders/ politicians would just be able to get along nicely and share resources, respect each other's territories? I don’t think so.