Patriarchy, patriarchy, patriarchy, we’ve had the story shoved down our throats for decades, ad nauseum. But what about the gynarchy?
To give a recent account of the matter, a self-described “tall blonde psychologist” named Sharon Lawson sends out the following rallying call to increase the power of the gynarchy:
How refreshing it is to see a feminist admission that gynarchy has come of age. I particularly love the way she uses miniscule font when writing ‘men’ to emphasise how the gynarchy thinks. Sharon has written other gems of feminine wisdom on her blog including this astute distillation called 10 Reasons why Women are Superior:
1. For a man, peeing is a messy and inconvenient affair. Urine splashing outside of the bowl? Eugh! Animals. Women never splash because we have the good sense to sit down on the seat. Uh, hello? They invented toilet seats for a reasons, guys.
2. We get to experience the awesome power of growing life within our own bodies. The beauty, the understanding and appreciation of life this gives us is unparalleled. Moreover, the experience of childbirth makes women more in tune with all of life.
3. Sexual dimorphism is becoming less and less of a thing as humans advance, and this will eventually put the performance of traditionally male tricks of brute force and superficial showmanship at a disadvantage. Evolution is about grace, intelligence, and compassion now.
4. Heteronormative males miss out on the fun and pleasure that is makeup application and dressing up in cute skirts, dresses and heels. Sure, we get to wear jeans and sneakers and cool casual clothes, but we have the option of a whole extra wardrobe section – and we get to cover up our pimples and highlight our cheekbones.
5. Our sexuality is oft considered a beautiful mystery. Everyone expects boys to begin whacking off as soon as their little curly hairs begin to sprout down south, but girls have an allure, a mystique that we can use as a special tool to our advantage pretty much forever.
6. Politicizing academia is the highest calling of education. You go spend your time doing math puzzles or reading Moby Dick, while we change the world.
7. Woman are wanted, craved, lusted after. Men drop dollars just to get a woman to take off her top in front of him. Men, listen up: I’ll pay you to keep that shirt on your bloated chest, you gross beast.
8. Men have too much testosterone and conditioned to be violent by society. That’s perhaps why they are, statistically speaking, more criminally violent than women. Oh, and boobs > balls.
9. While women have historically been opressed, this actually makes us more powerful in the long run because we have a more nuanced and reealsitc understanding of the world, power, and everything.
10. Men are keys. Women are locks. Are you kidding me? Women, at least this woman, is smart enough to know human sexuality can’t be reduced to a simple and stupid metaphor. Or even a silly article like this.”
Man, that is my kind of psychologist – smart, insightful, and ready to help me understand how to value myself should I have any problems like, er, wanting to kill myself due to cultural misandry. The 10 commandments of gynocracy are sure to provide a boon to the helping profession she has just spent years at university preparing to enter, and clearly she has been listening closely in class. For those of you who are interested in receiving counselling from Sharon she happens to be a self-employed psychologist working out of Montana; just be sure to practice how to genuflect on arrival to her sessions.
While ‘gynarchy’ is a relatively unheard of term, most by now would have heard the related word gynocentrism — a versatile term applied to literally anything we consider female dominated, from cultural institutions to gender relations – one that has proven a useful addition to the MHRM lexicon.
Gynarchy more specifically than gynocentrism refers to government by or for female interests, including any establishment of laws and bureaucracies that serve them. In this sense gynarchy is a simpler and more historically rooted term for what we have been calling “feminist governance.”
Fortunately gynarchy has a long history of consistent application and isn’t an awkward neologism requiring introduction into the language. To get a taste of its usefulness let’s look at some of the historical uses of gynarchy (and its variants gunarchy, gunarchie, gynæcocracy, ginæcocratie, gynecocracy, gynocracy) starting in the 16th century:
1660: That in Gynarchy the wife is not subject, but superior to her husband [R. Coke Power & Subj.]
1737: Gynæcocracy is feminine rule; petticoat government [Universal English Dictionary]
1755: Gynæcocracy: petticoat government; female power [Dictionary English Language]
1758: I have always some hopes of a change under a Gunarchy; where whim and humour commonly prevail. [Chesterfield Letter. (1792) IV. cccl. 159]
1763: Denotes the government of women, or a state where women are capable of supreme command. Such are Britain and Spain. [Dictionary Of Arts & Sciences]
1816: In the fishing villages on the Firths of Forth and Tay?the government is gynecocracy. [Scott Antiq. xxvi. Note]
1838: [Under gynocracy] women enjoy a greater influence… Mr. Hoskins says they seem to lord it over their husbands, and all mercantile transactions are confided to their hands. [Gentl. Magazine]
1886: That social gynæcocracy for which France is famous. [Temple Bar LXXVIII. 509]
1890: So will you best help to maintain?the true gynarchy [Blackw. Mag. CXLVII. 264/2]
Note the gender hierarchy alluded to in the year 1660 which claims that under gynarchy the wife is not subject to, but superior to her husband, or the 1838 mention of wives being superior to husbands, indicating that gynarchy requires servitude and inferiority of men toward women. These examples explain why males, over the centuries, have been consistently trained to serve the gynarchy with chivalrous servitude that reinforces the superiority of individual women. We see this chivalrous reinforcement of the gynarchy from the Middle Ages through to the time of Ernst B. Bax and continuing forward to today’s “feminist governance”. Evidence of the latter is all around us; in female-serving male politicians (the vast majority), government funding and entitlement programs, education, and popular culture. We definitely need a word for this broad societal governance that we can unsheath at quick notice – and this word (gynarchy) has been with us for around 500 years.
Matriarchy (rule by moms) is an inaccurate term for political hegemony enjoyed by the female gender, much as patriarchy is an inaccurate term as applied to all males – not that accuracy ever worried feminists who continue to refer to patriarchy (rule by actual dads) when andrarchy would be far more descriptive of their imaginary construct. Unlike the mythic patriarchy of feminists that lacks evidentiary backing, historical gynarchy is supported by an embarrassing mountain of empirical evidence. If we define gynarchy as government by or for women’s interests the evidence shows that today’s social institutions are thoroughly gynarchic.
Modern dictionaries usually define gynarchy as a political system governed by women or a woman. For a more nuanced understanding it’s important to recognise that “the political system” that women govern may actually be staffed by male servants called prime ministers, presidents, or politicians who work on behalf of the ruling female gender.[1] In her book What’s Right With Feminism Cassandra Langer gives a concise definition that accounts for the proxy role of male leaders: “Gynarchy refers to government by women, or women-centered government.”
Make no mistake, women all the way from Christine de Pizan with her City of Ladies to today’s feminists like Sharon Lawson have had a desire to perpetuate and expand the centuries-old gynarchy. If we can do one thing to raise awareness of this insidious tradition it will be to point a finger at The Gynarchy and call it by its proper name.
[1] Alison Tieman’s YouTube video When Slaves Ruled explains this theme incisively
