Queen Galadriel: Life under The Matriarchy

There's a commonly held view that, if women ran the world, it would all be flowers, sunshine, peace and love. It's probably nonsense. The capacity of women for unpleasantness, judgement, offence and cruelty is little different from the same capacity in men even if it is often delivered differently.

So life under The Matriarchy wouldn't necessariliy be nicer, happier, healthier or more peaceful. It may even be worse:

Quantitative analyses (n = 285) revealed that 94% of participants wished to possess a superpower, and majority indicated using powers for benefitting themselves than for altruistic purposes. Furthermore, while men wanted positive and negative powers more, women were more likely than men to use such powers for personal and social gain.

Ok. I know. It's some weird research about 'if we had superpowers'. The real world won't be like that of course.

…we find that queenly reigns participated more in inter-state conflicts, without experiencing more internal conflict. Moreover, the tendency of queens to participate as conflict aggressors varied based on marital status.

Among married monarchs, queens were more likely to participate as attackers than kings. Among unmarried monarchs, queens were more likely to be attacked than kings. These results are consistent with an account in which queens relied on their spouses to manage state affairs, enabling them to pursue more aggressive war policies. Kings, on the other hand, were less inclined to utilize a similar division of labor.

It seems female participation - however achieved - is no guarantee of a better world. Nor is women having power a protection against greed, self-interest and corruption.

The Matriarchy might not be quite what we wished for....

“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”

....

Stopping men from debating abortion is an act of oppression not liberation...

****

So abortion is a contested area. But do people really think they can shut down debate because:

The idea that in a free society absolutely everything should be open to debate has a detrimental effect on marginalised groups. Debating abortion as if its a topic to be mulled over and hypothesised on ignores the fact that this is not an abstract, academic issue.

Nobody, not a single soul, thinks abortion isn't intensely real for women faced with the choice. But to prevent half the population from discussing the subject because they don't have a uterus is an act of oppression not liberation. Yet this is precisely what Niamh McIntyre and her friends did - they shut down a debate because the protagonists, for and against abortion were both men.

The truth was that the debate wasn't about Niamh's uterus - it is utterly selfish of her to believe it was. And, if she didn't want to hear two men debate abortion, she could have read a book, gone to the pub, had a swim, played chess or a myriad of other choices. What she chose - preventing others from speaking - was the act of suppression, the very thing feminists are supposed to contest.

....

Is it feminist to say rape is a male problem?

****

We debated child sexual abuse at Bradford's full council meeting this evening. The debate was, as these things always are, something of a mixed bag. There's no doubt that we're all genuinely concerned about the problem - both the historic abuse and the real truth of continuing abuse in our city today.

I spoke and gave over part of my speech to the vexed matter of misogyny. After all 90% of the cases we're dealing with here involve the raping and repeated sexual abuse of teenaged girls. And I made the observation that this is about a culture that sees women as either distant and mysterious princesses or else as sluts, slaves and servants of male desire. In prosaic terms too many men see women as either wives or whores.

After the meeting I did a little interview. The interviewer asked me to go over the main points of my speech. Or rather, as she hesitatingly put it, my...er...feminist speech. I repeated my belief - stated in the speech that rape in a male problem and that men have to challenge the definition of women by their role rather than by their character. If it is women who set out that challenge then it's all to easy for the man to respond with 'you're a women, you would say that'. Making light of sexual violence needs to be challenged just as we would challenge any other glorification of violence. And it must be challenged by men.

Now I don't consider this a matter of feminism but rather that the idea of treating another person as merely an object of self-gratification is pretty repulsive. But I am curious how saying rape is a male problem - women don't ask to be raped however dressed, spoken or drunk - is somehow a reflection of feminism rather than a matter of how we make a better human society. Perhaps that's what feminism is about?

....