Chris Knight: Did Matriarchy Ever Exist? 25 September 2018

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Talk given to the Radical Anthropology Group at Daryll Forde Seminar Room, Anthropology Building, 14 Taviton Street, London WC1H 0BW on 25 September 2018
Chris Knight, founder or Radical Anthropology Group and author or Blood Relations, discusses myths of matriarchy, which are found all over the world. Is there any truth in the idea that women once exercised political power over men? Many feminists have dismissed such stories as ideological narratives invented simply to justify men's rule. These scholars argue that biology prevents women from exercising real political power, that sexism prevails everywhere and that patriarchy has always existed. There will be discussion of the ethnographic, archaeological and genetic evidence for and against these ideas.

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3 окт 2018

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Комментарии : 130

@FranciaMichelle 3 года назад

Read The Siblys By Mama Zogbe to learn about matriarchal societies and how they were destroyed and wiped from "history".

@mouseutopiadystopia24601 7 месяцев назад

Matriarchal societies are inferior to patriarchal societies. Patriarchies are wealthy, safe, and long-lived. Matriarchies are poor, unsafe, and temporary. Matriarchies wiped themselves from the map through weakness, inefficiency, and disorder. Also, most "matriarchies" are just matrilineal soft-patriarchies. Arguably, no pure matriarchies ever existed, or at least not long enough or important enough to be remembered.

@RandyStIves 6 месяцев назад

Patriarchy is leading society into hell because they think souls come from mens penis

@RandyStIves 6 месяцев назад

I don't have to compare my masculinity to yours but I already know I'm more than you as your close minded like the christians

@RandyStIves 6 месяцев назад

The world is dying. And those who you admire in charge are struggling if you keep up with the true news

@slimjim5487 5 месяцев назад

Thank You

@alisonyahna8041 8 месяцев назад

It’s pretty amazing to see the title did matriarchy ever exist? And then scrolling down to see Native Americans talk about matriarchy and their cultures, and the Africans talk about matriarchy in their cultures. And European famously, patriarchal, and other things, too, continue to mentally gyrate over whether or not matriarchies ever existed? Actually, amazing isn’t the word… Revealing is

@mouseutopiadystopia24601 7 месяцев назад

There is a legitimate argument to be had. Patriarchy can be defined as: 1) Inheritance passes down the male line. 2) Men are family and clan leaders. 3) Men are civic and institutional leaders. Most "matriarchies" do not invert all of these. Judaism is matriarchal for 1), but patriarchal for 2) and 3). Some "matriarchies" allow only women to vote for leaders, but they only vote for male leadership (patriarchy). Basically, there are no matriarchies that are as matriarchal as patriarchies are patriarchal. Pure patriarchies are often successful, safe, and long-lived, but few, if any, "pure matriarchies" have ever existed. The more matriarchal the matriarchy, the less successful, safe, and long-lived the society will be.

@LouLouLion День назад

Very revealing. It's mostly this one man who responded. He's very insecure and he knows that if he doesn't have entitlement and power over women by the wheelchair ramp called patriarchy, he would have to actually be worth having a relationship with. So he's really upset about that and wants to diminish women and their accomplishments. It makes him feel better about his small penis.

@virtusoroca7724 4 года назад

THE best anthropology class I've ever seen.

@ChristineAllen_yeni 3 года назад

Thanks for blowing my mind. I just love this talk...so many aspects of it.

@ashleyncorder 2 года назад

Wow! This was amazing. I'm super excited about exploring these ideas!

@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 5 лет назад

Awesome. I was looking forward to this - while meditating.

@modernmatriarchy 11 месяцев назад

Modern Matriarchy is different from feminism, as feminism doesn't require sacrifice from men; modern matriarchy does.

@mouseutopiadystopia24601 7 месяцев назад

How does feminism not require sacrifice from men? First, men still dominate critical infrastructure, engineering, security, etc. As a sine quo non of society, feminism requires male sacrifice in at least these forms, obviously. Second, net positive tax payers are predominantly men, and women are predominantly net tax drains (i.e. parasites); the social spending feminists demand are provided by mostly men. Third, all of the social/cultural demands of feminists are enforced by men. Feminists childishly think removing women from dependence on husbands and fathers meant removing them from dependence on men; instead of a woman relying on "her men" (husband, father, brothers, and sons), she relies on all men (employers, police, tradesmen, social services, etc.). We can argue whether authentic matriarchies can exist or have ever existed. We can argue whether non-feminist matriarchies can exist. However, it is objectively true that all matriarchies and all feminists are completely dependent on the sacrifice of men.

@Goofy8907 7 месяцев назад

2:07 dude, this is so effin interesting, do you have like sources or like a list of places this has been show and proven? Like I'd love to see all the accounts for stats etc This is such a key to understanding ourselves as humans I'd wanna know about all evidence regarding this Throughout time, artifacts, papers, DNA etc, everything we have How can I get it?

@matriarchalprayerproject 3 месяца назад

I agree, after studying some anthropology and theology: People are brainwashed from the time they are babies to worship men and pray to a father taught that a patriarchal book that excludes women is “holy” (holy coming from the word “whole” “holistic”) and they are unopen to the idea of Matriarchy to the point that they can’t believe the earth was longer than 6,000 years old (because before then there was more Matriarchy). Rather than admit matriarchy existed, they would rather believe the world is only 6,000 years old and teach this to others.

@izebellebluereadsoutloud3715 2 года назад

This is awesome.

@mpress469 2 года назад

As the timeless Ouroborus would suggest, patriarchy is a tail-end extension of its own matriarchal head, where one can not exist without the other as each follows the other throughout the course of all eternity. Spiritually speaking (gender aside), matriarchy can begin with an understanding of the cyclical nature of reality (God). Represented by the snake in many creation myths, the living cycle has a trinity of a beginning (head), a middle and end (tail). As above so below, the sexes were created in the image of God's cyclical nature where Mother is the head and opening to all beginnings and Father holds the tail to all endings (through which the sowing of seeds allow for the next great matriarchal rebirth).The joining of the two (symbolized by the Ouroborus or the marriage ring) is the sacred union needed in assuring the creation and continuation of new life cycles. To speak of the present day God as "Our Father" is simply an admission to our collective positioning within the bigger cycle. As all mothers have direct experience with the creator quality of birthing, so is the direct experience of rebirthing the divinity within (baptism) belong to that which is spiritually matriarchal. (John 3, verse 3-8). Sekhmet statues (ancient Egyptian) carry most of their weight in symbolic memory of what was a mother culture dedicated to the direct experience of baptism. As the leg shaped hairlocks extend from maternal breasts to the womb of rebirth, the lioness's head proportions are such that they highlight the bust of a second animal figure. The Lioness's ears as eyes and eyes as nose (nostrils) brings to life the figure of a reptile. 'Neath the halo headress of the solar egg, the lioness's egg fertilization process being internal (Set) and the reptile's egg fertilization process being external (Setting), such being key components to the safety of entering the trans-egoic or "born again" state. The life threatening fear associated with the predatory nature of a lion and/or crocodile encounter are reflective of the intense ego death experiences associated with the transpersonal awakening process. In spiritually matriarchal times, illumination could be seen as wearing the false beard (ancient Egyptian funerary "ego" death mask) as the high state of cyclical self knowing; high awareness of both our upper matriarchal half and our lower (later) patriarchal half (compared with a mini lower body replica, an "as above so below" tail end beard extension); in full recognition of her civilizational Underworld; her inevitable cyclical destiny. The male pharaoh wears his beard tapered in reverse, indicating a pointing upwards towards the patriarchal head, divine representative of God's tail end cycle. Mary's anointing and wiping of Jesus's feet with her hair can then be seen as "Head to tail" (toe) imagery as she descends her matriarchal head to his patriarchal feet, thus reenacting the high understanding of the divine cyclical process. (John 12, verse 3) To carry the Ankh (now the female symbol ♀️) was perhaps to symbolically carry that upper and lower understanding. As the upper matriarchal womb symbolised the fertile birthing of civilization, below, the now Christian cross is carried to place emphasis on the lower (later) "End Times" Father principle of the great cycle. Lord Ganesha, the elephant headed Hindu diety, displays a cyclical head to trunk symbolism and points to the Mother head of his matriarchal elephant society. Ganesha (like the elephant) wears God's cyclical nature on his face. A whole temple was dedicated to Hathor (ancient Egyptian diety), who is the matriarchal "Uterus" personified. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-J0m0zJSEFK0.html "See all women as mothers, serve them as your mother. when you see the entire world as the mother, the ego falls away. See everything as Mother and you will know God." - Neem Karoli Baba "My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother." - Proverbs 6 : 20

@wesleycristman3278 2 года назад

Just because a society honors and respects it’s women it’s considered a “matriarchy”? How about the concept of collaboration instead of domination? Certain things men should lead in, certain things women should lead according to our strengths. Simple as that. The terms “patriarchy” and “matriarchy” have less to do with reality and more with ego

@mouseutopiadystopia24601 7 месяцев назад

"Just because a society honors and respects its women it's considered a matriarchy?" No. Some (most?) patriarchies honor and respect women more than most matriarchies, but they are still patriarchal. Patriarchy can be defined as: 1) Inheritance passes down the male line. 2) Men are family and clan leaders. 3) Men are civic and institutional leaders. Most "matriarchies" do not invert all of these. Judaism is matriarchal for 1), but patriarchal for 2) and 3). Some "matriarchies" allow only women to vote for leaders, but they only vote for male leadership (patriarchy). Basically, there are no matriarchies that are as matriarchal as patriarchies are patriarchal. Pure patriarchies are often successful, safe, and long-lived, but few, if any, "pure matriarchies" have ever existed. The more matriarchal the matriarchy, the less successful, safe, and long-lived the society will be. While I agree too many people are ego-invested in the topic, this is a urgent and critical topic to discuss. All of history in all geographies and all ecologies prove pretty clearly that patriarchy is objectively superior to matriarchy. However, feminists and women are ego-invested in undermining the patriarchy. As a result, civilization is collapsing, women are miserable, children are failing to launch, and social trust is depleted.

@matriarchalprayerproject 3 месяца назад

i love this! Women were assigned to the sun in times of Matriarchy. (And men were assigned to the moon). i think we are multidimensional enough today to understand that both men and women have equal solar and lunar times (we need the same amount of sleep and day light hours). Women have just as much light to shine as men and don’t need to “reflect” patriarchy. Women’s periods revolve around the moon, either starting on the full moon or new moon, and ovulating on the other. Because women are either most fertile or carnally sexual on the extremes of the moon, men bleed on the extremes of the moon by getting into more fights and accidents as a result, during the extremes of the moon, especially full moon. And there is great effort to wipe out the effect the moon has on the earth and on our bodies. Thank you for this !

@svenhanson398 Год назад

Interesting, thanks

@greatmomentsofopera7170 3 года назад

This story doesn’t explain why larger brains were selected for, only that the ceiling was lifted. Many biologist have argued that a huge part of why brains are so big is because of sexual selection - women choosing smarter males to breed with. To the extent that we have twice as many female ancestors as male (I.e. half of men never bred, the other half bred with two women. As an average). One of the reasons that human women find child birth so difficult compared to other species is because the brain and skull size has evolved far faster than the pelvis.

@scientifico 8 месяцев назад

smartness is no sign of success. Look at a cockroach. around since before dinosaurs and will out survive us.

@mouseutopiadystopia24601 7 месяцев назад

Women do not have a strong direct attraction to intelligence; this is not a plausible hypothesis. Intelligent men are generally more materially and socially successful, and attractive/symmetrical men are slightly more intelligent. Women select for looks, resources, and social status; each of these are loosely correlated with intelligence. As women directly select for looks, resources, and social status in men, baby brains get bigger. As baby brains get bigger, the adult social world becomes more complex, further rewarding intelligent men. Women continue to select for looks, resources, and status, and baby brains continue to get bigger, and the social environment becomes more complex, further rewarding intelligent males.

@matriarchalprayerproject 3 месяца назад

what about the other way around where the smarter the mother was, the more likely the child was protected, nurtured and survived

@bobwilson7684 4 месяца назад

very very neat, so well spoken, so well exposed, brilliant mate

@ranjhamasalih1610 2 года назад

What did he mean by hunter gatherers using laughter for leveling ? Did not get it

@OliveJewel Год назад

22:03 The first word spoken by humans was spoken by women, and what was this word? No. Brilliant!

@stevenpham6734 24 дня назад

LoL, no is one of the few words you don't need language to speak it. It's more of a sentimental statement than a factual claim.

@OliveJewel 22 дня назад

@@stevenpham6734 Would be nice if a sentiment was as all women needed, yet in political terms, the word is what counts!

@AnonosaurusRex1 3 года назад

I don't understand the conclusion. The lecture seems to make a strong case for a female centered culture as the default position, but then professor Knight states that we cannot escape male dominated structures. Is it not possible that a realization of how we developed beyond the other primates may result in a new found respect for mother-centered culture and an intentional return to this??

@xxxstar90dustxxxr 3 года назад

Yes we can escape male dominated cultures and we have too! What else would he have said?! He is a man....

@KingKhan-123 3 года назад

Women want men who are taller than them ,stronger than them, earn more than them. This is why men are more competitive and dominant.

@xxxstar90dustxxxr 3 года назад

@@KingKhan-123 They want men who are physically strong and they wouldn’t mind a man who earns a lot of money (😉). But they don’t want a man who is stronger than them as a personality or a man who is “dominant” at least not with them. On the contrary actually.

@AnonosaurusRex1 3 года назад

@@xxxstar90dustxxxr Do you actually mean to suggest that he cannot have a fair minded and reasonable opinion because he is a man. Suppose, one were to say the opposite.

@AnonosaurusRex1 3 года назад

@@KingKhan-123 What about- smarter?

@izebellebluereadsoutloud3715 2 года назад

There are various male & female moon & sun gods throughout history around the world. It can go either way. I think sometimes each energy has both dichotomies. Marichi is still a popular Sun Goddess in Hong Kong.

@kunstnersjael 2 года назад

Inuit people have the sun as the woman and moon as the man (brother ans sister mostly)

@mikejohn29mj Год назад

Don't forget Amaterasu is the Sun Goddess in Shinto and Tsukuyomi is the Moon God.

@srdjanstevanovic3543 2 года назад

Very interesting lecture.Core of it is in the middle, where he gets to a point, and point happened to be pretty ideological and political, despite his bing man of science.

@adriancastillo1957 3 года назад

I didn’t think brain size was as much of an indicator of intelligence as much as how a brain is structured.

@MoralGovernment 2 года назад

The size of the brain especially compared to the body is correlated with intelligence in species. But in individual humans a big brain doesn’t necessarily mean intelligence.

@mouseutopiadystopia24601 7 месяцев назад

@@MoralGovernment Brain size is indeed correlated with intelligence among humans; in general, an individual adult human with a bigger than average brain will be smarter than average.

@abcrane 2 года назад

matriarchy is not defined as political power over men, but the lack of power hunger altogether in both men and women...Malinowski discovered this with the Trobriands....only a few chiefs power tripped, clans had strict rules about distribution of power between husband and wife to the point whereby the mother raises the children with their own brothers...

@FX-bi2nr 2 года назад

This is nonsense. There are different matrikhrats with different divisions of power, etc. There is also a hierarchy in the matriarchy. It's just a slightly different plan. All that matriarchal women say is complete nonsense, more faith than well.

@FX-bi2nr 2 года назад

@@abcrane I don't agree at all. I do not believe that men should be secondary in families and in the lives of children. Just a bad comment. I do not intend to conduct further communication. I've seen how cruel women are, just like in my life, when my mother can beat me (and my father can't protect me, because his child was taken away from him). As in other societies. I believe that a father has the right to be an equal participant in the life of children (this is his biological right, his genes). For me, the nuclear family is better than what you described. Although, of course, a matrilineal family may be better for women. After all, they are not deprived of their children. Men need help to preserve their rights to THEIR OWN children from women (maybe they are wolves too?), who imagine themselves to be one-sided in matters of population reproduction. And yes, I've read about the Iroquois and other herds. Mourning war, clan mothers and the Council of Women. These are wild people. There is so much wildness in their culture and the hierarchy of the Nyah is clearly not egalitarian. I am against matrilineality. I am against matrifocal families, where the father is simply marginalized and in fact not needed. I am against such an attitude, because in this respect a man is a banal resource. As in the service of the bride, when a man is just a resource for a woman, he serves her and her family so that he is allowed to live in her family and take care of the children. There has always been a hierarchy in the matriarchy. Hierarchy exists in any society and it can be expressed in different things. Matrilineality is in itself a hierarchy where a man is humiliated on the basis of biological parenthood. We're just talking about a much more primitive hierarchy, because societies themselves are less developed, their populations are much smaller, etc. These are primitive societies and in their realities there may be a patrilineal or matrilineal family (in fact, there are almost two identical extremes, where in the first case, if patrilocality is practiced, then the wife leaves for her husband's family, where children are also brought up collectively, in the third case, the husband leaves for his wife's family). Hell will begin for me personally when I find myself in a matrilineal society where I have no rights to children, where someone decided that I should be on the back burner in raising children and that my opinion is less significant in matters of raising children. So it's not for you to tell where hell is and where it isn't. And it's not for you to tell where the children are better off. Children and nuclear families are fine. It depends only on what kind of parents the child has. For you, the nuclear family can be hell. For me, this is the ideal in which egalitarianism can be achieved. Goodbye. I hope you're smart enough to keep quiet, I don't want to talk to you. It seems that time is passing and we should strive for a fair society, but it turns out that some individuals simply seek to return what probably did not exist. The main thing is that women feel good, and a man, well, it's just a resource for females. So disgusting...

@abcrane 2 года назад

@@FX-bi2nr I apologize and own that my comment was insensitive and reactive. I wish you healing and wellness. Perhaps ... Feminism should not have been about proving oneself in men’s “civilized” social and economic roles, but freeing one’s men from such roles. Both men and women, then, could return to the critical task of together building new authentic life-affirming models of economy, education, and entertainment. Here, achieving equality as lifeless parts in a mechanistic machine economy transvaluates into a new equilibrium in an organic vivacious ecology whereby the field of “economics” resumes its more authentic role as stewardship of maintaining harmony between men, women, children, and all of life.

@FX-bi2nr 2 года назад

@@abcrane Thank you. I also apologize if I was rude somewhere.

@abcrane 2 года назад

@@FX-bi2nr no worries wishing you wellness

@bobwilson7684 4 месяца назад

the Voylnich code is full on illustrations of women together performing all sorts stuffs ...?..that is a fact,,,uh

@chriscorvus1808 10 месяцев назад

How do you explain the fear of men the child is not theirs? How would that fit into a sexual kommunism?

@ultravioletpisces3666 4 года назад

Why wouldnt matriarchy have existed exist? That's a better question.

@Aditi-mb3qm 3 года назад

Matriarchy has existed but men like to rule over others not women so they ended Matrinial socities and ruined the world for everyone. In Patriarchy even man suffers but in Matriarchy no one suffers. Even today many Matrinial societies has survived and in those societies crime rates are very low and every one has rights and people there are more happy. We need to learn from them

@mostlyholy6301 3 года назад

I think the simple answer is that men are stronger than we are. Physical strength is no longer a major factor in society, but in the ancient past it counted for a lot more.

@fighterpilot4059 3 года назад

@@Aditi-mb3qm When has a matriarchy existed in the past.

@drittsekk8997 3 года назад

@@Aditi-mb3qm that's an incredibly stupid and idealized conception of it

@phoivos 3 года назад

@@Aditi-mb3qm It's more like: Patriarchal societies (where men ruled) were physically stronger than Matriarchal societies (where women ruled), and as someone before has said in this thread, physical strength mattered in the ancient past as far as the survival of a society goes more than today. Which explains why there isn't a single prominent historical example of a functional Matriarchy that lasted long enough to be remembered as a successful society. And it wasn't a men vs women sort of thing. The entirety of human history is the strongest society prevailing over the weak.

@greatmomentsofopera7170 3 года назад

Weird to mock other anthropologists for not being objective and being motivated by ideology, and then spell out ones own ideological underpinnings so clearly at the end of an anthropology lecture. It undermines any trust built up in the lecturer for the previous hour, but at least the cards are on the table...

@revelationpowerhour9149 Месяц назад

😂😂😂 some of this things are true in African 🇿🇦traditions. ✅✅✅🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦

@Leon-hv4tf Год назад

Lollipop power

@Leon-hv4tf Год назад

Hubaltricity

@pandemidora7503 3 года назад

How much Human is left when a child is raised by wolfs?

@RiverogueLander 2 года назад

This is disinformation. Europeans were not egalitarian, nor used the moon or sun in religious worship, at least not the proto indo europeans from 2,500 bc onward. They were a polytheist patriarchal society. This is describing shamanism in the pre indo-european hunter and gatherer days. People who where closer genetically and ethnically to siberians and native americans.

@matriarchalprayerproject 3 месяца назад

Anthropology isn’t studying 2,500 years and onwards, it’s looking back 30,000 years and more. Evidence points to our brains being larger 30,000 years ago to the point where women could not longer give birth without the fear of dying from the human brain becoming too big, which is where the tale of “knowledge” being associated with death and punishment of women came about (i believe). Rather than shaming and cursing women for childbirth, the native american Iroquois story of creation elaborates on this and states we were instructed to have better knowledge and teachings of medicine and value medicine more. They don’t curse women for this. They just teach that our knowledge needed to be redirected towards healing and medicine. The moon calendar is just as important as the sun because women’s periods sync up to the moon (if they are healthy). Most women’s periods either fall on a new moon or full moon and women can use the moon as birth control to know when they are fertile and when they are not. The moons also affect the tide. All advanced civilizations of the past seem to have moon calendars and sun calendars. 2,500 years is not a long enough time to study anthropology. People are brainwashed through religions to not accept anything but patriarchy by worshipping a father god and omitting the mother god, to the point that they would rather claim the world is 6,000 years rather than admit we had matriarchy before. It’s sad and ridiculous. Really the most healthy happy long-lived cultures are matriarchy and patriarchy combined.

@chriscorvus1808 10 месяцев назад

21:00 - Just not true. Look at King penguin, Storks, Seahorses...

@mouseutopiadystopia24601 7 месяцев назад

Clearly you don't understand the scope of the conversation. He's referring to primates, specifically non-human primates. Your examples aren't even mammals. That's as dumb as citing non-social species as matriarchal.

@phoivos 3 года назад

Why would he even address how many men or women there are in the audience at the start of his lecture? It seems profoundly anti-intellectual given the topic of the lecture. Your ideas should have nothing to do with the sex of the people who are listening to you, professor.

@mouseutopiadystopia24601 7 месяцев назад

Such a crybaby. It is interesting, from an anthropologist's perspective, that for a lecture about matriarchy the self-selected audience is predominantly female. You can also see this in the comment section. You can also see it in "gender studies" departments. You see it among feminist (anti-patriarchy) activists. Why is it that so many women/feminists are drawn to the defense of matriarchy and the subversion of patriarchy? Why aren't men so drawn to the defense of patriarchy and the subversion of matriarchy? Why do most men seem to correctly intuit, but not discuss, the pragmatic necessity of patriarchy, but the most ignorant women cannot shut up about matriarchal utopianism?

@revelationpowerhour9149 Месяц назад

Let’s move to matriarchal capitalism to prevent matriarchy from dying again when society choose to pursue capitalism.