You might want to sit down for this one. It’s a little uncomfortable to hear.

I keep hearing people, women especially; say they want a matriarchy. Women rising. Women leading. Women taking power back from systems that have historically suppressed them.

And every time I hear it, I can’t help but think something quietly confronting:

Most of us aren’t actually ready for one.

Not because women are incapable of leadership, but because the framework we’ve been taught to understand power through is still deeply masculine. Linear. Competitive. Dominant. Strategic. Built around proving, doing, and achieving.

So when many women imagine a world led by women, what they’re often imagining without realising it; is simply women playing the same game men have been playing, but sitting at the head of the table.

That isn’t matriarchy.

That’s patriarchy with different players.

The Problem With How We Understand Power

Part of the reason we’re here is because the movement that shaped much of our modern thinking about women’s power was built inside that same masculine framework.

Feminism particularly in its modern cultural form; often oriented women toward doing, competing, proving, and achieving. Toward meeting men on the terrain men had already defined.

Before anyone misinterprets me, let me say something clearly: I am not against the legal gains feminism fought for. Women having the right to vote, to work, to own property, and to make choices about their lives matters deeply.

But energetically, something else happened along the way.

In order to claim equality within a masculine system, women had to elevate masculine ways of operating. Rationality over intuition. Productivity over presence. Strategy over embodiment. Mind over body.

And somewhere in that process, the feminine, not women, but the energetic principle of the feminine; was quietly pushed further and further to the edges.

Because woman does not automatically equal feminine.

The Feminine Is Something Entirely Different

The feminine is something else entirely.

It’s cyclical. Relational. Intuitive. Embodied. It’s concerned with nourishment, connection, emotional depth, and the invisible threads that keep life coherent.

And when women become disconnected from that energy, something strange begins to happen in our culture.

We start mistaking aggression for empowerment.

You can see it in the way conversations about gender are unfolding right now. The mocking of men. The dismissal of them. The belief that reclaiming power means humiliating the other side of the polarity.

But hatred of men is not a matriarchal value.

Dominating men isn’t matriarchal either. Neither is fearing them, belittling them, or reducing them to the enemy.

That kind of energy isn’t leadership.

It’s reaction.

True Matriarchy Is Stewardship, Not Domination

True matriarchy wouldn’t be about women ruling over men. It would be about women stewarding the balance between masculine and feminine forces in a way that keeps life healthy.

Matriarchy is not domination.

It’s stewardship.

It’s the capacity to hold boundaries while also ensuring that the nutrients of the feminine, emotional connection, care, relational intelligence, intuition, nourishment; are present within the system.

And that nourishment isn’t only for women.

Men need it too.

A healthy masculine requires the feminine. It requires softness to land in. Emotional depth to relate through. Intuition to balance logic. Connection to balance conquest.

Without the feminine, the masculine becomes distorted.

And the same is true in reverse.

Real Change Begins With (radical) Ownership

Here’s where the conversation becomes more confronting.

It’s easy to point to men as the ones responsible for suppressing the feminine. It’s harder to ask how women participate in that dynamic too.

This is the piece I think most conversations about power skip over.

Actionable change begins with ownership.

Not blame.

Ownership.

If we want to transform the world, we have to be willing to ask ourselves a question that most movements don’t encourage us to ask:

“How do I, as a woman, actively participate in creating the things I find abhorrent?”

That question isn’t comfortable. But it’s the beginning of real power.

Because the collective isn’t something separate from us. Culture is built from the behaviours, values, and choices of millions of individuals interacting with each other every day.

When we talk about the commodification of women’s bodies. For example platforms like OnlyFans, it’s easy to frame that as something done to women by powerful institutions.

But the reality is more complex.

Millions of women now participate in systems that monetise sexuality directly. Platforms where bodies, intimacy, and attention are traded as currency have become normalised to a degree that would have been shocking only a generation ago.

This isn’t just a top-down problem.

It’s a cultural one.

And culture is something we co-create.

That doesn’t mean the women participating in those systems are villains. Many are navigating survival, opportunity, or validation in a world that has already shaped their incentives in particular ways.

But it does mean we cannot talk about transformation without talking about participation.

If we refuse to look at the ways we contribute to the patterns we dislike, we remain stuck in outrage instead of moving toward change.

Rage can be an important signal. It tells us something is wrong.

But rage without responsibility just spills energy.

Responsibility is what turns emotion into transformation.

Feminine Power Comes From Embodiment

This is where I believe modern feminism often fails women on a deeper, spiritual level. Not because it gives women too much power, but because it defines power in a way that disconnects women from the source of their deepest strength.

When women are encouraged to operate almost entirely from the mind; argument, ideology, intellectual dominance they become further separated from their bodies.

From intuition.

From the quiet, deeply embodied wisdom that has always been the feminine’s greatest resource.

What you end up with is a kind of disoriented feminine energy.

Emotionally intense, but not grounded.

Passionate, but not integrated.

Reactive, but not deeply powerful.

I sometimes think of it as a “drunk” feminine; emotions amplified by the mind but disconnected from the stabilising intelligence of the body.

True feminine power doesn’t come from louder opinions or sharper arguments.

It comes from embodiment.

From the ability to feel deeply without losing yourself. To hold rage, grief, tenderness, and discernment all at once. To stay connected to intuition while navigating a world that constantly tries to pull you into performance.

“Rage without responsibility just spills energy. Responsibility is what turns emotion into transformation.”

And perhaps even more importantly:

“Matriarchy is not domination. It’s stewardship.”

What a Real Matriarchy Would Actually Ask of Us

That kind of feminine presence doesn’t need to dominate men.

It changes the field around them.

It invites the masculine to rise instead of collapse.

And that is the kind of leadership a true matriarchy would require.

Not women simply inheriting the existing structures of power, but women cultivating a different relationship to power altogether.

A relationship rooted in responsibility, embodiment, and stewardship.

So when people say they want a matriarchy, I find myself wondering whether we truly understand what that would ask of us.

Because it wouldn’t just mean women having authority.

It would mean women taking radical responsibility for the energetic field they participate in creating.

It would mean asking harder questions about our own choices, our own participation, and our own relationship with the feminine.

It would mean stepping out of reaction and into stewardship.

And that kind of work isn’t glamorous.

But it’s the kind of work that changes the world.

Join the Conversation: The Gathering Dinner

These are the kinds of conversations I care deeply about having in real life.

Not online debates or ideological shouting matches, but thoughtful, embodied conversations between women willing to explore these questions with honesty and nuance.

That’s exactly why I created The Gathering — an intimate dinner where women come together to explore power, embodiment, femininity, and the deeper cultural conversations shaping our lives.

Seats are intentionally limited to keep the space intimate and meaningful.

If this piece resonated with you, you’re warmly invited to join us at the next Gathering Dinner.

Come share a table, a conversation, and an evening with women who are willing to go deeper > https://events.humanitix.com/the-gathering-dinner

So you say you want Matriarchy