Matriarchy

Have you heard of a book called The Names by Florence Knapp? This is my favourite read of 2026 so far.

The premise, while challenging, is amazing: Cora – a mother – is in an abusive marriage. Her husband’s family follows a tradition of calling the first born son ‘Gordon’ after the fathers before. But she doesn’t want to call her baby son Gordon because she doesn’t want him to grow up to be like his father. And what would happen if she dared to disobey this rule, this tradition?

The story follows three distinct yet intertwined threads based on the name she chooses for her son – Bear, Julian or Gordon.

I think what I admire most about Knapp’s writing is the way she manages to tell the whole story so elegantly, even though she depicts three very different outcomes for the family. Each thread beautifully links to the others. It never feels repetitive. You get to know the characters more deeply within each thread, and you take what you’ve learned in one thread into the next.

In addition to reading The Names, I’ve been working my way through Anna Karenina, by Tolstoy. As I write this, I am very close to the end. One of the main characters, young mother Kitty, is nursing her son and thinking fondly about her husband. She thinks, ‘Yes, only be like your father, only like him.’  

This reminded me so poignantly of The Names. Tolstoy’s Kitty wants her baby to grow up to be like the husband she loves. In The Names, Cora wants nothing of the sort. Her husband is so cruel, so controlling, that she wants something completely different for her son.

Which brings me to the topic of masculinity.

Tolstoy’s men are confident, and – as emphasised throughout the book – they have independence, autonomy. The men think about their independence and pursue it wholeheartedly (in some cases, to their detriment). The women do not.

Tolstoy, who was writing in the late 1800s, considers ideas that we would today call feminist. In Anna Karenina, he poses substantial questions about the education of women and women pursuing careers. But the book is also loaded with the mores of the time – the shame of divorce, the adherence to religious values, the shackled role of women. The men rule. They decide people’s fates. They run the politics. And their most prominent reflection on a woman’s role is to consider how a wife and family might impede their independence.

Now, 150 years later, the patriarchy persists. Most men who perpetuate it do so in blissful, privileged ignorance. Like fish unaware of the water they swim in, way too many men fail to notice the privilege that cloaks them.

Right now, strongmen are bombing each other while the world looks on. An elite class of paedophiles remains unaccountable. Last year, Australia lost 79 women to gender-based violence. Women earn, on average, 88.8 cents for each dollar men earn. And online, toxic interpretations of masculinity spread like wildfire.

It’s bold but I want to say it anyway: if women ruled the world, we would not be at risk of World War III in 2026.

What would it be like if women ruled the world?

Dr Heide Goettner-Abendroth writes:

Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchies, with women ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are mother-centred societies. They are based on maternal values: caretaking, nurturing, mothering. This holds for everybody: for mothers and those who are not mothers, for women and men alike. Matriarchal societies are consciously built upon maternal values and motherly work … They are, on principle, need-oriented. They aim to meet everyone’s needs with the greatest benefit.

In her 1915 novel Herland, author and feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman describes a utopian land populated entirely by women. The book’s concepts can seem naïve – for example, Perkins Gilman deals with the question of reproduction in an unrealistic way. But she also portrays women thinking, planning and sharing in a way that rings true.

As I read Herland, I found myself wishing that its premise were true: that women shaped their lives and communities, prioritising inclusive, caring values. The Names and Anna Karenina made me feel the same way.

I am proud to take part in the global cry for matriarchy. This cry is probably loudest in social media feeds like mine – progressive, feminist, environmentalist. I’m sure Clavicular’s social media feed looks very different to mine! But I want to amplify that cry and to see mainstream politics, media and discourse infused with matriarchal principles.

After World War II, we entered into new world order. But the world remained patriarchal, imperial, racist and capitalist. Let us hope that we do not need a World War III to create a new world order. Let us move towards matriarchy. Let us join the cry.