Matriarchy: The Power of Collective Female Leadership 1Matriarchy: The Power of Collective Female LeadershipChristina Park

Matriarchy: The Power of Collective Female Leadership 2

Matriarchy: The Power of Collective Female Leadership

Men have been the favored crowd, the popular crowd, for quite a while inWestern culture. This “boys’ club” has been handed the podium, family inheritances,career advancing favors, center stage in literature, visibility in the media, sexualentertainment, and social leadership positions as far back as most of our schools’ historybooks go. And with that public favor they have managed to hoard decision-making powerabout everything from public policy to the entertainment industry.And because this society’s favors for men have made “the boys’ club” the placewhere the public spotlight is, the place where all the fun is, women have often chosen toemulate men’s apparent social and material success by adopting the male behavioralstrategies that supposedly have led to it. This includes men’s standards for treatment of others, as well as men’s attitudes towards women. Many women choose to conform tothese standards themselves and apply them to other women simply to be included andavoid the nine circles of hell associated with being an outcast: being excluded frompublic leadership, left out of board rooms and after parties, ignored as cultural rolemodels, forgotten in history books, trivialized in entertainment, criticized by boyfriendsand husbands- wait… come to think of it, that’s also the cost for women’s

inclusion

bythe boys’ club.But beyond issues of self-censorship, women have resorted to adopting thebehaviors and strategies of this self-serving group of men and their male leadership style.This is the group of men who have led Western societies into scandalous and genocidalreligious wars since the Crusades, who have pirated the natural resources and lives of other cultures since European colonialism and slave trading, who have trashed and

Matriarchy: The Power of Collective Female Leadership 3mismanaged their own natural resources and painted themselves into a corner withenvironmental collapse, who have repeatedly shot themselves in the foot withoverspending and looted the people under their leadership to cushion themselves from theconsequences: this is an undisciplined group of bullies and blundering idiots.The problem is that women have lost touch with themselves in the attempt toemulate male aggression and other destructive coping mechanisms from our society’straditionally male leadership. When the most badly behaved group of people is rewardedthe best social treatment in the form of professional alliances, social fawning, andexemption from family obligations and the rules of fair play, their society isdemonstrating a system of rewards and punishments that encourages the well-behavedamong us to throw away their good social habits for the sake of social advancement.In our society, violent crime, as well as sexually violent crime, is predominantly amale problem. Typical annual statistics are as follows: 83% of spouse murderers aremale

, 79.9% of all non-fatal family violence is committed by men

, 75% of datingpartner murderers are male

, 87% of all stalkers are male

. Men commit 100% of rapeagainst women, and 70% of all rapes against men; similarly, 92% of physical assaultsagainst women and 86% of physical assaults against men are committed by men

. This isnot violence towards an external or national threat for preservation of oneself and one’scountry. This is violence turned against one’s own culture and support system.Perhaps this cultural phenomenon of violence among men is a sign of too muchpower being handed to those without the social ingenuity to know what to do with it.Over the last decade, researchers in the social sciences have conducted studies onhigh school students in Western cultures to determine gender differences in their learning