Partnership and Domination Models
Eisler proposes that we need new social categories that go beyond conventional ones such as religious vs. secular, right vs. left, capitalist vs. communist, Eastern vs. Western, and industrial vs. pre- or post- industrial, which she notes do not describe the whole of a society's beliefs and institutions.
She has coined the term dominator culture to describe a system of top-down rankings ultimately backed up by fear or force. One of the core components of this system of authoritarian rule in both the family and the state is the subordination of women — whether in Nazi Germany, Khomeini's Iran, or in earlier cultures where chronic violence and despotic rule were the norm. She analyzes the androcracy (governance of social organization dominated by males) of Indo-European and other societies, versus what she proposes was a partnership model (as distinct from matriarchy) for the social organization of Neolithic Europe and the later Minoan civilization that flourished in prehistoric Neolithic Crete.
To support the idea that neither men nor women dominated one another, Eisler cites archeological evidence from southeast Europe, especially Crete, drawing much from the research of Marija Gimbutas, James Mellaart, Nikolaos Platon, and Vere Gordon Childe. Her hypothesis about prehistory also relies strongly on sources such as the Gnostic Gospels and on the history portrayed by the Ancient Greek poet Hesiod. To support her thesis for contemporary societies, she draws heavily from cross-cultural studies. She and others using her partnership/domination conceptual framework have applied her analysis to fields ranging from politics and economics to religion, business, and education.
Read more about this topic: Riane Eisler
Famous quotes containing the words partnership, domination and/or models:
“Nevertheless, no school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children’s best interests. Parents have every right to understand what is happening to their children at school, and teachers have the responsibility to share that information without prejudicial judgment.... Such communication, which can only be in a child’s interest, is not possible without mutual trust between parent and teacher.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.... The United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Friends broaden our horizons. They serve as new models with whom we can identify. They allow us to be ourselves—and accept us that way. They enhance our self-esteem because they think we’re okay, because we matter to them. And because they matter to us—for various reasons, at various levels of intensity—they enrich the quality of our emotional life.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)