Some thoughts on ‘Women Rising’ and evolving a ‘New Democracy’
Women Rising by Honey Nelson, October 2021
World societies today little question the norms of their own structures and cultures, accepting them as variations on a basic human state of being: living under this or that towering governing regime, whether autocratic, elected, or dynastic.
We all inherit unceasing varieties of competitive hegemony, engineered man-made environments, militarism and armaments, many punitive laws, a hierarchical political structure under assorted kings, chiefs, emperors, theocracies, autocrats, generals, dictators, party leaders, prime ministers, military alliances, cabals, revolutionaries, oligarchies, warlords etc.
The ground was laid perhaps 10,000 years BP, by Neolithic peoples gradually settling to farm, eventually pushing a hunger for land ownership and expansion; quite a short time ago in our 100,000-year history of homo s. sapiens.
However it is only for about the last 5,000 years, with the advent of cities and metals and writing in the near east, that these masculine cultural forces have risen up and dominated.
Prior to these, archaeology shows that paleolithic hunter-gatherers and neolithic agrarian peoples thanked and revered the Earth-feminine as a sacred procreating provider – Earth mother goddess, as it were. (They surely would not have named their famous contemplative figure of maternal regeneration and bounty – 25,000 years old – a ‘venus fetish’).
Venus of Willendorf statue
C. 25,000 BP
Subsequently, knowledge of the feminine spirit was sidelined, and eventually silenced and excised altogether from the ascendant world crusading religions of the past 2500 years: all creation now presided over by a single all-powerful male god. Even amongst pantheon creeds, this hierarchy of gods and male potency pervades most of the human populations on every continent.
It is only amongst some quiet-living indigenous peoples that the knowledge of female spirit lives on, in equal and natural balance with male spirit. Her spirit, too, is embedded in the place whose sacred consciousness was debarred long ago – the Earth Mother.
In the most recent few hundred years, proliferating human populations and techno-engineering skills have driven a mass culture of military colonialism, land clearance, deep mining and extraction, smelting, high-rise construction, high-energy travel. The Earth and her waters and atmosphere are exploited as a dead lump of rock and elements.
Not all men are control freaks!
We all know and love the men around us. Hegemonic institutions, as forged by the early land-grabbers, have a potency of their own: the path to success is to rear above and dominate those below. Once embedded, these hierarchies have attracted and safeguarded bullies and demagogues, and become institutionalised as ‘norms’ of government for millennia.
Even in more recent times of modern democratic government, we have still inherited masculine hierarchical models whose rules and behaviour do not reflect the aspirations and manners of women, who must ‘act the part’ or sink within these tough arenas.
But the vast majority of men are not magnetically drawn into power and its inherent corruptions, and indeed share our longing for safety for their families. This is a great good!
World crises of today
A man-made fossil-fuel and forest-clearance climate crisis, bringing unprecedented extreme weather, fire, flood, desiccation, extinctions, and mass human movements to escape these impacts.
A world pandemic, escaped from wild creatures trapped and killed for human use and consumption.
International threats of barricade and warfare, over nationalism and trade and religion and ideology: all during rising planetary temperatures, a viral plague, and its consequent looming economic fallout.
A widening gulf of poverty and vast wealth which sees a handful hoarding profit and power -- a sort of resurrected money feudalism.
A soaring human population of 8 billion, which has doubled within the past 2 generations, is 5 times what it was 200 years ago, 16 times that of 400 years ago. At this rate, it will be 10 billion within another single generation. There is no coordinated global talk or movement to limit our breeding excesses, and our mass consumption and squandering of Earth resources.
A toxic, proliferating accumulation of waste and non-degradable rubbish choking world oceans, waters, atmosphere, landscape and life-forms.
Australia’s ecology and economy are out of balance
The Australian population is about 26 million. Most cling to the urbanised east coast and subcoast.
Vast reaches of dry inland country are cleared and irrigated not only for food provision for ourselves, but mass industries of meat and cotton and grain and mined ores and hydrocarbon fuels for export to others.
The sparse forests of our land are clear-felled for agriculture and logging.
The rivers are diverted, polluted, and sucked sick and dry for broadscale farming.
Over 40% of our native species have been extinguished in 240 years, and rising.
Energy is largely generated by fossil fuels, despite 3 generations of certainty as to the climate consequences.
The economy is doggedly dominated by ore and oil and gas extraction and meat production, feeding vast quantities of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere.
Australian democracy
Most of us appreciate living in a democracy, albeit a clumsy and pugilistic one.
Democracy is a large word: there are a great many variations on the democratic structure, governing many peoples throughout the world.
In Australia we have inherited a simple, rather primitive version of democracy: with a combative bicameral parliament of two heavyweight opposing parties and a few side players - a sort of perpetual rugby scrum, largely avoided by women and hostile to those who enter the combat arena.
This ponderous institution in Australia is clearly unwilling (unable?) to comprehend, let alone act upon, the extremity and imminence of climate catastrophe: both because of its doggedly combative culture, and the narrow-minded character of many who are drawn to such a pugnacious arena.
The significant majority of members are men, to the present day. And even with increasing numbers of women gaining access, the generations-old systems and policy agendas are relentlessly male in character. Women are therefore condemned to ‘fit in’ as best they can.
What is apparent is that the primary human and humane task of caring for the world for the next generations, is well down the list of government priorities.
Women are rising
There are rising movements of women all across the world today. Women are realising that after all, contemporary political and religious cultures do not reflect the human condition overall, but the male human condition; as they have been overwhelmingly co-opted, structured and operated by men for several past millennia.
And we are realising that our women’s minds and modes are very different: that we long for a public ethos centrally dedicated to life and family safety and future; a lateral and collaborative mode of guiding societal policy and action, recovery and direction; arenas of governance conducting far-reaching conversations rather than confrontations.
We are realising, with mounting distress, that the overwhelmingly male presidents and autocrats of the world are not putting family and future life on Earth as their urgent priority — not in time, anyway. Their dragging and uncooperative debate effectively bequeaths to our descendants a life of inescapable struggle, heat, fire, flood, hurricane, water deprivation, warfare, exhaustion.
It is reckoned by psychologists that many men driven by ascendancy and power, are sociopaths! Certainly many world leaders today are not consciously fathers and grandfathers, but hoarders and warriors: as they face each other down with bullying, sanctions and weapons.
We women must work out ways to ascend ourselves, right now, to reclaim our necessary, equal and rightful places at the table; as the people of the Earth debate and move to determine the fate of our children and the Earth’s life.