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Riane Eisler

Riane Eisler Biography

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“The main take-home lesson from a careful study of nomadic forager partnership societies, re-enforced by the recent Nordic experience, is that humans are capable of living in egalitarian social systems where neither dominates the other, where violence is minimized, and where prosocial cooperation and caring typify social life. This image is not a utopian fantasy but rather a set of potentials, if not inclinations, stemming from our evolutionary heritage.”

HumanityCaringCooperationPartnershipConditioningNurturingEgalitarian Society
Book:Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future
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“It is also more than likely that women invented that most fundamental of all material technologies, without which civilization could not have evolved: the domestication of plants and animals. In fact, even though this is hardly ever mentioned in the books and classes where we learn history of "ancient man", most scholars today agree that this is probably how it was. They note that in contemporary gatherer-hunter societies, women, not men, are typically in charge of processing food. It would thus have been more likely that it was women who first dropped seeds on the ground of their encampments, and also began to tame young animals by feeding and caring for them as they did for their own young. Anthropologists also point to the fact that in the primarily horticultural economies of "developing" tribes and nations, contrary to Western assumptions, the cultivation of the soil is to this day primarily in the hands of women.”

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Book:The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future
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“Obviously there is pain in childbirth. But giving birth is also a moment of awe and wonder, a moment when the true miracle of aliveness, and of a woman's amazing part in that miracle, is suddenly experienced in every cell of one's body. It is in that sense truly an altered state of consciousness.”

GivingStatesMomentsBodyPainConsciousnessWonderBirthMiracleCellsAweAlteredChildbirthGiving BirthStates Of ConsciousnessAwe And WonderAltered StatesAltered States Of Consciousness
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“[On the ancient Venus figurines:] If the central religious figure was a woman giving birth and not, as in our time, a man dying on a cross, it would not be unreasonable to infer that life and the love of life - rather than death and the fear of death - were dominant in society as well as art.”

IfsMenGivingWellsArtReligionReligiousDyingFiguresBirthCrossesAncientOur TimeLife And DeathLove LifeDominantFear Of DeathUnreasonableVenusGiving Birth
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“there are only two basic ways of structuring the relations between the female and male halves of humanity. All societies are patterned on either a dominator model - in which human hierarchies are ultimately backed up by force or the threat of force - or a partnership model, with variations in between.”

WayHumansTwoHumanityForceHalfModelsFemaleRelationThreatMalesPartnershipHierarchyVariationFemales And Males
Book:The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future
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“Nonviolent Communication is a powerful tool for peace and partnership. It shows us how to listen empathically and also communicate our authentic feelings and needs. Marshall Rosenberg has a genius for developing and teaching practical skills urgently needed for a less violent, more caring world.”

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“Schools in which students and teachers relate as partners-where Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication is part of every interaction are communities of learning, rather than top-down, impersonal factories. Young people begin to see school as a safe and exciting place of exploration where they can share feelings and ideas, and where each child is recognized, valued and nurtured.”

PeopleChildrenIdeasFeelingsSchoolYoungCommunityTeacherShareStudentsCommunicationSafeExcitingPartnersRelateExplorationFactoriesInteractionNonviolent CommunicationTeacher And StudentTop Down
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“This notion that man can, and should, have absolute dominion over the "chaotic" powers of nature and woman...is what ultimately lies behind man's famous "conquest of nature" - a conquest that is today puncturing holes in the earth's ozone layer, destroying our forests, polluting our air and water, and increasingly threatening the welfare, and even survival, of thousands of living species, including our own.”

MenShouldTodayEarthLyingWaterLossBehindsAirSurvivalShould HaveAbsolutesSpeciesNotionIncludingDisasterHolesForestsWelfareDestroyingLayersThreateningConquestDominionChaoticAir And WaterOzonePower Of NatureOzone Layer
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“For as long as human beings are forced to live in a system that at every turn impedes the fulfillment of their basic human needs - not only for love but for creative and spiritual expression - they will try to compensate for this in other ways, including the compulsive acquisition of ever more material goods.”

WayNeedsTryingHumansLongSpiritualTurnsHuman BeingsLossCreativeExpressionMaterialsIncludingDisasterFulfillmentGoodsAcquisitionHuman NeedsBasic Human Needs
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“That both Muslim fundamentalists and the Christian right are today focusing their attempts to regain control in a rapidly changing world on frantic efforts to maintain control over women, particularly over women's sexuality. Moreover, given their mythologies about "holy wars," it is also understandable that they should use "divinely approved" violence to do so.”

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“And this exclusion of "women's work" continues, despite United Nations data gathered since 1975 (the beginning of the UN Decade for Women) indicating that women globally contribute two-thirds of the world's work hours, for which - given the imbalanced, unjust, and truly peculiar nature of the accounting characteristic of dominator economics - they globally earn only one-tenth of what men do and own a mere one-hundredth of the world's property.”

MenWorldTwoGivenNationsHoursUnitedEconomicsThirdsPropertyMereDecadesDespiteDataCharacteristicsPeculiarDishesUnjustUnited NationsAccountingExclusion
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“I pray for a world where we live in partnership rather than domination; where "man's conquest of nature" is recognized as suicidal and sacrilegious; where power is no longer equated with the blade, but with the holy chalice: the ancient symbol of the power to give, nurture, enhance life. And I not only pray, but actively work, for the day when it will be so.”

MenWorldGivingPeacePrayingHolyAncientSymbolsPartnershipNurtureConquestDominationSuicidalBladesI PraySacrilegiousChalice
Author:Riane Eisler
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“The good news is that there is strong movement in this direction of shifting from domination systems to partnership systems. Over the past several hundred years, one progressive movement after another has challenged traditions of domination - from the 18th century "rights of man" movement challenging the "divinely ordained right" of kings to rule their "subjects" to today's environmental movement challenging the once hallowed "conquest of nature."”

MenYearsTodayPastStrongChallengesRightsSubjectsCenturyMovementKingsNewsHundredTraditionEnvironmentalProgressivePartnershipGood NewsConquestDominationShiftingOver The Past18th CenturyYear OneProgressive Movement
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“The bad news is that the movement toward the partnership side of the social scale (and it is always a matter of degree, as no society is a pure partnership or domination system) has been fiercely resisted and countered by periodic regressions. So domination systems have rebuilt themselves in different forms - be they secular or religious, eastern or western, leftist or rightist.”

Has BeensDifferentMatterFormSocialSidesReligiousMovementPureDegreesNewsWesternScalesPartnershipSecularEasternDominationBad NewsLeftistsRegression
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“People from authoritarian, male-dominated, punitive families tend to vote for "strongman" leaders and for "hard" punitive policies (prisons, wars) rather than "soft" caring policies (healthcare, childcare). Not everyone from this background does. But many people do. And this conditioning can be exploited, as Trump's campaign did, especially in times like ours of economic, social, and technological upheaval.”

PeopleDoeWarHardSocialLeaderEconomicPolicyTrumpVotePrisonMalesCaringCampaignsBackgroundsHealthcareTechnologicalConditioningUpheavalChildcare
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“If we look at the last decades, we see that the US rightist-fundamentalist alliance demonized partnership-oriented families and painted women's rights as a threat to "tradition" - which of course it is to traditions of domination. These people had an integrated political agenda that recognizes that a "traditional" authoritarian, male dominated, punitive family is foundational to an authoritarian, male dominated, punitive politics. We can see this connection in sharp relief in brutal top-down regimes, be they secular like Nazi Germany or religious like ISIS in the Middle East.”

PeopleIfsLooksLastsPoliticalCoursesReligiousRightsMiddleTraditionConnectionsThreatMalesEastDecadesTraditionalGermanyReliefAgendasRegimesMiddle EastPartnershipBrutalSecularWomens RightsNaziDominationIsisAlliancesIntegratedFundamentalistNazi GermanyTop DownPolitical Agendas
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“For most progressives, what happens in families is a matter of "just" women's issues and children's issues. So progressive movements have focused primarily on dismantling the top of the dominator pyramid (politics and economics) and left its foundations (domination in family, gender, and other intimate relations) in place.”

ChildrenMatterHappensLeftIssuesMovementEconomicsRelationFoundationGenderFocusedIntimateProgressiveDominationPyramidsPolitics And EconomicsProgressive Movement
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“We can learn a great deal from whales. It is the same lesson we can learn from our close genetic relatives, the bonobo apes of the Congo. Here mothers have a great deal of authority, there is very little violence (with no signs of sexual violence against females), and their society is held together by sharing and caring rather than by fear and force.”

LittlesTogetherMotherForceDealsViolenceLessonsAuthorityFemaleCaringApesCongoWhalesBonobosSharing And Caring
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“It is not coincidental that for so-called religious fundamentalists - whether they are Western or Eastern, Muslim or Christian - rigid male dominance and "holy wars" are priorities. Or that competing sects of the same religion, such as Sunni and Shia, are at each other's throats. In these cultures, women are rigidly controlled by men.”

MenWarChristianCultureReligiousHolyWesternMalesPrioritiesControlledThroatCompetingEasternDominanceSectsShiaHoly WarMale Dominance
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“Neither capitalism nor socialism is capable of meeting our unprecedented global challenges. Both came out of early industrial times, and we are now well into the post-industrial age. Both came out of times when the West still oriented much more to the domination side of the social scale, so both these theories did not pay attention to caring for people and nature.”

PeopleWellsStillsAgeSocialSidesChallengesPayAttentionTheoryCapableCapitalismMeetingsWestCaringScalesSocialismPostsPay AttentionDominationUnprecedented
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“For most of recorded history, parental violence against children and men's violence against wives was explicitly or implicitly condoned. Those who had the power to prevent and/or punish this violence through religion, law, or custom, openly or tacitly approved it. .....The reason violence against women and children is finally out in the open is that activists have brought it to global attention.”

MenChildrenReasonLawWomenAttentionWifeViolenceCustomsActivistApprovalWomens RightsDomestic ViolenceApprovedViolence Against WomenParentalStop Violence Against Women
Author:Riane Eisler
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“Women represent 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people in our world who live in absolute poverty. Consequently, as Joan Holmes, president of the Hunger Project, points out, any realistic efforts to change patterns of chronic hunger and poverty require changing traditions of discrimination against women.”

PeopleWorldPresidentEffortPovertyProjectsPercentTraditionAbsolutesHungerPatternsBillionsDiscriminationOur WorldRealisticHolmesHunger And Poverty
Book:The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics
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