1325: Matriarchy | Skeptical Sunday

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Jordan Harbinger Show

Episode 1325: Matriarchy | Skeptical Sunday

Host: Jordan Harbinger
Guest/Co-host: Jessica Wynne (writer and researcher)
Date: May 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

On this Skeptical Sunday, Jordan Harbinger and co-host Jessica Wynne take a deep dive into the topic of matriarchy. Rather than engage in simple gender wars, the duo examine what matriarchy really means, dispel common myths, critique Western biases in anthropological research, explore real-world examples, and challenge listeners to think more critically about power, gender, and the structures underlying society. The discussion is nuanced, combines humor and skepticism, and leaves listeners questioning not just who is in power, but what power even means.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Are "Matriarchies," Really? (02:42–06:26)

• The episode kicks off by exploring whether true matriarchies exist today.
• Jessica highlights societies commonly labeled as matriarchal (e.g., the Minangkabau of Indonesia, the Khasi of India, and the Bribri of Costa Rica).
  • These societies tend to be matrilineal (inheritance and names descend through the female line) and sometimes matrilocal (husband moves in with wife’s family), but men often hold formal political and religious power.
  • “So the women own everything and the men, it kind of sounds like they run everything.” – Jason (04:03)
  • In the Khasi, a men's rights movement has even emerged, despite men holding official power (04:44).
• The term "matriarchy" is often applied by outsiders who may miss local realities.

2. The Reality Behind "Matriarchal" Societies (06:26–13:28)

• Even in matrilineal societies, most ritual, political, and prestigious positions are reserved for men.
  • E.g., Among the Bribri, women can inherit land and play key ritual roles, but shamans and funeral rites are male-only (07:06).
  • The Misuo of China, often labeled as the "last matriarchy," have unique relationship structures (“walking marriages”) where female-headed households are the norm, but men retain some authority in certain domains (07:48–12:46).
• Outsiders frequently mischaracterize these societies as true matriarchies: “A society can look progressive on paper while the day-to-day experience is still pretty constrained or even oppressive.” – Jessica Wynne (05:19)

3. Defining Matriarchy: Matrilineal, Matrilocal, Matrifocal, or Matriarchal? (14:18–15:54)

• Jessica clarifies the differences between these terms:
  • Matrilineal: Descent and inheritance through the mother, but not about authority.
  • Matrilocal: Husband moves into wife’s family home; structure, not power.
  • Matrifocal: Mother as the household anchor; brings influence, not formal power.
  • Matriarchal (proper): Women dominate political, social, and moral authority; extremely rare.
• “If matriarchy means women hold primary political, social, and moral authority... this kind of society is extremely hard to find.” – Jessica Wynne (15:37)

4. The Myth of Prehistoric Matriarchy (18:01–23:09)

• The notion of a prehistoric “golden age” matriarchy has roots in 19th-century European scholarship (Johann Jakob Bachofen) and was shaped further by Friedrich Engels and later feminist movements.
• “The most rigorous takedown of this peaceful, matriarchal world narrative comes from a feminist scholar... Cynthia Eller.” – Jessica Wynne (19:58)
• Eller’s key arguments:
  • Archaeological evidence (e.g., goddess figurines) does not prove women held real power.
  • Myths of matriarchal prehistory reinforce limiting gender stereotypes, even when “empowering.”
  • “It keeps the stereotype. So the same traits that have been used to exclude women from power are now being used to justify it.” – Jessica Wynne (22:33)
• The myth was originally created by men who saw patriarchy as progress; later, feminists reframed it as a lost paradise.

5. Western Bias and Erasure in Both Scholarship and Colonization (27:06–30:48)

• Colonizers and early anthropologists often failed to recognize female authority in societies like the Akan (Ghana) and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), unintentionally (or intentionally) reshaping these societies to be more patriarchal.
  • “Women’s political roles were simply not legible to them. So they gave no respect to female power.” – Jessica Wynne (27:53)
• Documentation centered on what was familiar to Westerners, thus causing both misrepresentation and real social change.

6. What Does Real Evidence Show? Modern Matriarchal & Egalitarian Societies (32:07–42:53)

• Heidi Goettner-Abendroth’s research suggests matriarchal societies exist, but her definition is built on egalitarian principles rather than female domination.
• “If matriarchy just means a relatively egalitarian society where women have high status... what work is that word actually doing?” – Jason (34:10)
• In matrilineal Misuo communities:
  • Autonomy and social support for women are higher, and women’s health outcomes (lower inflammation, lower blood pressure) are better than in nearby patrilineal communities (36:46–37:40).
  • Men’s health is similar across both structures, challenging the idea that matriarchy is zero-sum.
  • “The data shows a strong correlation between men in power and your [women’s] health.” – Jessica Wynne (37:40)

7. What Do These Findings Mean for Gender, Power & Society? (40:01–51:09)

• There are costs for men in patriarchal societies: emotional isolation, rigid expectations, higher suicide rates.
  • “So you win the game. But it’s a pretty bleak prize.” – Jordan (41:27)
  • “It’s not really power then, it’s pressure.” – Jordan (41:43)
• These gendered patterns aren’t biological but social, so they can be changed.
• The essential critique:
  • The real issue is not just “who’s on top,” but whether societies need to be organized around domination and hierarchy at all.
  • "We’re still defining power as domination... sometimes it just dresses sexier and has a cool plane." – Jessica Wynne (49:24)
• The best model may not be a gender swap but a focus on equity, care, and reciprocal support.

8. Intersectionality & Complexity Beyond the Gender Binary (43:29–54:07)

• Inspired by scholars like Kimberly Crenshaw, the hosts stress that gender cannot be examined in isolation—race, class, and other factors interact (“intersectionality”).
• Even in societies with strong roles for women, equity is not guaranteed for all women (or other groups).
• Some societies don’t operate on strict gender binaries, so “matriarchy” and “patriarchy” may not be adequate frameworks.

9. Reflections: Why This Matters and What to Do Next (55:10–57:12)

• Matriarchal societies aren’t blueprints, but their data challenge our assumptions. Measurable benefits (like health outcomes) merit attention.
• Both men and women are constrained by rigid, hierarchical systems; alternatives exist and have real, observable effects.
• “If increasing women’s autonomy is linked to better health outcomes and we dismiss it out of discomfort, we’re choosing ideology over evidence.” – Jessica Wynne (55:19)
• The real project is building societies less centered on domination and more on equity, care, and connection for all.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“A society can look progressive on paper while the day to day experience is still pretty constrained or even oppressive.”
— Jessica Wynne (05:19)

“If matriarchy just means a relatively egalitarian society where women have high status... what work is that word actually doing?”
— Jason (34:10)

“It keeps the stereotype. So the same traits that have been used to exclude women from power are now being used to justify it.”
— Jessica Wynne (22:33)

“So you win the game. But it’s a pretty bleak prize.”
— Jordan Harbinger (41:27)

“We’re still defining power as domination. Sometimes it just dresses sexier and it has a cool plane.”
— Jessica Wynne (49:24)

“The case for a more balanced society with gender equality doesn’t depend on whether women were in charge 10,000 years ago. It stands on its own.”
— Jessica Wynne (31:59)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• 02:42 — Introduction to matriarchy and first society examples
• 07:48 — Misuo society and walking marriages
• 14:18 — Defining matrilineal, matrilocal, matrifocal, and matriarchal
• 18:01 — The myth of prehistoric matriarchy and its origins
• 27:06 — Colonial bias and the erasure of female power
• 36:46 — Health, autonomy, and social structure in matrilineal societies
• 40:01 — Effects of patriarchy on men, not just women
• 43:29 — Intersectionality and complexity beyond binary genders
• 49:24 — The recurring flaw: equating power with domination

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Tone & Style Notes

• The conversation is witty, gently self-deprecating, and infused with Jordan’s and Jessica’s trademark skepticism and humor.
• Both hosts continuously question assumptions—about gender, about power, about “history”—always pushing listeners to think beneath easy narratives.

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Conclusion

This episode of Skeptical Sunday cuts through common misconceptions to reveal that so-called matriarchies are rarely simple reversals of patriarchy and highlights the crucial distinction between structure and power. The idea of a golden-age matriarchy is revealed as myth, but the investigation also makes clear that many societies have found ways to organize themselves that challenge our binary, hierarchical expectations. The real project—beyond myth—is building systems that value care, equity, and connection, benefiting everyone. As always, the case for progress stands on evidence, not on nostalgia or fantasy.

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Useful for discussion, analysis, or anyone seeking the truth behind the “matriarchy” headline.

Transcript

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[Jordan Harbinger]

Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co host, writer and researcher Jessica Wynne on the Jordan Harbinger Show. We decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that

[Jason]

you can use to impact your own

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life and those around you. And our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week we have long form

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[Jason]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

tell your friends about it, and I

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[Jordan Harbinger]

suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of some of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, disinformation, junk science, crime and cults, and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Now. Today on Skeptical Sunday, we are talking about matriarchy. Not patriarchy, the word you hear all

[Jason]

the time on the Internet.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We're talking about matriarchy. Now, I know you're thinking this is either about dunking on feminism or building

[Jason]

some kind of shrine to it, but

[Jordan Harbinger]

the actual story here is so much more complicated. I don't actually know what a matriarchy looks like globally, but I do know what it looks like when I lose an argument at home. Now, to help me think through it is writer and researcher Jessica Wynne. Okay, so let's not start with a definition, because I think definitions are where

[Jason]

this conversation kind of goes to die.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So let's start with a place.

[Jason]

Is there an actual matriarchy somewhere on Earth Right now?

[Jessica Wynne]

There are places routinely described that way, like the millions of Menang Kapow people in West Sumatra, Indonesia. They are the largest matrilineal society on Earth. Property passes through the mother. The family name comes from the mother. Women control land and inheritance. And when you marry, the husband moves into the wife's family home.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, that sounds pretty matriarchal, but is

[Jason]

the land and namesake thing, is that just performative, or does this mean women kind of run everything?

[Jessica Wynne]

So men hold most of the formal political and religious roles. So Islamic law operates alongside customary law. And in both systems, men have significant authority. Women control the property, but often not the decisions happening on the property.

[Jason]

Okay, so the women own everything and the men, it kind of sounds like they run everything.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Yeah, that's right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And this is considered the world's largest matriarchy.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, but by journalists who visit and see property passing through women and make the claims without digging further. So the people who actually live there are sometimes baffled by the label.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Are there other societies or is this

[Jason]

kind of where it ends these days?

[Jessica Wynne]

Well, there's the Khasi in northeastern India. They're also matrilineal. Name, property, and clan identity all come through the mother.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Jessica Wynne]

The youngest daughter typically inherits the family home, and women are central to the household. And they do hold high status.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Jessica Wynne]

And the men, the men there have religious and political authority, but they don't seem content with this agreement because there's actually a men's rights movement among the Kasi. Okay, so it's a group called the Singkang Rinpe Timi. They're organized specifically to push back against what they see as men being marginalized by matrilineal inheritance.

[Jason]

All right, I probably shouldn't have laughed, but hold on. So this so called matriarchy has men in charge of religion and politics, and those men are complaints.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So that's like optics, I mean, which

[Jessica Wynne]

tells you something about the gap between what it looks like from the outside and what's really happening on the inside. So a society can look progressive on paper while the day to day experience is still pretty constrained or even oppressive.

[Jason]

This kind of reminds me of a Vice news piece from a few years ago. So my friend is a journalist who used to be at Vice, Isabel Young, and she interviewed this. I think he was like an Afghan member of parliament about women's rights. And the man wouldn't look at her at all, of course, and he would stop her questioning and then she pressed

[Jordan Harbinger]

him on something a little bit like

[Jason]

in a very polite way. And he basically tells the translator it

[Jordan Harbinger]

sounds like she wants to have her

[Jason]

nose cut off for being so insolent or something like that. And they subtitle it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's just. Have you seen this?

[Jason]

It's actually crazy.

[Jessica Wynne]

Oh, I remember it for sure.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

I mean, yeah, it is a wild clip.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynne]

Nothing says we take women seriously like threatening to mutilate the reporter mid interview. Yeah, I mean, he just proved her point by shutting down the interview.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

It was wild, right?

[Jason]

Exactly. Having a woman question him and question his authority or whatever he received, that was just too much in the minute.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Guys like that feel like they're on

[Jason]

the losing end of a gender gap. Even a hint of imbalance. It's suddenly, hey, we should consider equity.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The word fairness shows up real fast

[Jason]

when the shoes on the other foot.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Yeah, it's impressive, actually.

[Jessica Wynne]

Perspective changes very quickly when the dynamic shifts. There's also the Baraibi of Costa Rica and they're organized through matrilineal clans. So women are the only ones who can inherit land and the only ones permitted to prepare the certain cacao for sacred ceremonies, which is a really significant ritual role in their society.

[Jason]

So women control land and the sacred substance.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that sounds like real power, at

[Jason]

least in that society.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, and it is. But still the highest spiritual authority the shaman is a role exclusive to men, and only men perform funeral rites. So women hold the land and they do sacred daily work, while men hold the roles that carry the most prestige and respect.

[Jason]

Okay, so it sounds like women have the responsibility and men, in some ways have the glory here. And you know me, I'm not like a hardcore feminist guy. I have people listening right now who are maybe surprised by this, but this is what it sounds like to me.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I can't say I'm surprised because

[Jason]

it seems like optics are important in these systems.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is there anywhere it actually flips and goes the other way where women genuinely

[Jason]

hold both the resources and the prestige?

[Jessica Wynne]

There's one more case that's worth looking at, and it's probably the most misunderstood. So the misuo in southwestern China, near the Tibetan border. Their society is often called the last matriarchy. So the household is led by a senior woman, usually the grandmother. Children take the mother's name, they stay in her household, and inheritance passes through the female line. Women run the domestic economy and take on work that in many cultures is reserved for men.

[Jason]

Okay, that all tracks so far. So where does it get complicated?

[Jessica Wynne]

So the relationship structure is what's complicated. The misuo practice what's called axia. Translated, it means walking marriages. So a woman and man decide by mutual consent to be together, but they don't ever live together. They don't merge finances, and there's no formal contract. The man literally walks to the woman's house at night and goes back to his own family home each morning.

[Jason]

How romantic. Structural sleepovers. This is basically how my high school relationships work, just with better organization. And probably they didn't have to keep it a secret from their parents. I don't know.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Yeah, I don't know if they're sneaking in and out of windows like my high school boyfriend, but it's just how

[Jessica Wynne]

normal life works for them.

[Jason]

Gosh, can you imagine knocking on the door like, hi. Oh, hi.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes, I'm here to bang your daughter.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Yes, I'm here for my nightly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'll leave in the morning. It's also funny that the guy basically

[Jason]

does the walk of shame back to

[Jordan Harbinger]

his mom's house in the morning, just

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

like, well, that's us putting our Western high school idea into it. I mean, I think it's less walk of shame and more of just their marital commute.

[Jason]

Sure, sure. So the matriarchy is built on booty calls.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Who knew?

[Jason]

Okay.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It really is the lineage that's the

[Jason]

unit and not the couple that's the Big difference I'm hearing here.

[Jessica Wynne]

Right. And anthropologists call it something closer to serial monogamy. You know, it can be short term or lifelong, and the relationship can end if either person decides it's over. And what's interesting to me is there's relatively little social drama around all of this.

[Jason]

Okay, and what happens if the couple has kids?

[Jessica Wynne]

Children are raised entirely in the mother's household. So the primary male figure in a child's life is usually the maternal uncle, not the biological father. The father can be involved by agreement, but he's not the central paternal presence.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So this system operates quite a bit

[Jason]

outside of what we're used to. I'm impressed that it's unbothered by the norms in most other places.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wrap your head around this.

[Jason]

You're a man in this society, and

[Jordan Harbinger]

you're raising your sisters or whatever, kids

[Jason]

as their father figure. And you might even have your own

[Jordan Harbinger]

kids, but you're not really a big

[Jason]

deal in their life.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Their mother's brother is.

[Jessica Wynne]

Right.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

You're just the guy who comes over after they go to bed.

[Jason]

Yeah, you're like a sperm donor or whatever.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But the thing is, and I think

[Jason]

about that, and I'm assuming a guy's listening right now, are thinking about that, and they're like, oh, I don't really know about that. I don't really like how that feels. But to them it's completely normal. And it might be. It's a non issue for those guys. So I don't know. It is hard to wrap my mind around this. Cause we're so immersed in the current system that we have. It just is so different.

[Jessica Wynne]

I think it's hard for a lot of people even close to them to wrap their mind around it. The misuo aren't frozen in time, and they're under real pressure from the state government.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, you know what, that makes sense. You'd have to build a legal system around this.

[Jason]

Like, who gets custody when this relationship breaks up? And it doesn't make sense to give the father 50% custody. It's like, what are you doing?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't want to know. Those are. Let her and the uncle raise them.

[Jason]

I don't want anything to do.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Like, I'll come over and hang out.

[Jason]

What do you mean, child support? No, that's not my responsibility. I mean, that's just a totally different game.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So when you say pressure from the

[Jason]

state, what exactly do you mean? The government is against marriage by booty call or what?

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, pretty much. China's legal and economic systems are Built around nuclear families and formal marriage. And the misuo system doesn't fit neatly into that. They don't have any kind of contract when they get these walking marriages put in place. So there's a constant push towards standardizing these fair practices. Plus, the massua are heavily marketed as the last matriarchy, which causes this huge influx of tourists Expecting to see something exotic going on.

[Jason]

So this is the whole system becomes a spectacle and has a bit of an audience.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, Right. And that can start to reshape how the system is practiced. But even with that, the core structure holds. So women anchor the household and the economy. I mean, the men aren't powerless, but their roles are more specific. They tend to have authority in areas like ritual and funerals and the killing of animals, like certain community decisions. But the domestic and economic center of gravity is unmistakably female. Women run it. And that's the part that's hard to wrap your head around if you come from a system where marriage is the foundation of everything.

[Jason]

Yeah. Now, that is structurally highly unique. I mean, I can already hear some men saying, hey, this sounds great. No pressure to be the provider or a traditional family man. And they get to have sex on the regular still. Right. It seems like the system could have been developed on behalf of men, but it still gets called a matriarchy because of who's in control of the resources.

[Jessica Wynne]

I guess that's the misunderstanding. So it's not no responsibility. It's just a different responsibility. So men are still deeply involved in family life, but just in their own household as brothers and uncles, not as husbands and nuclear fathers.

[Jason]

Right. Okay. So you don't get to opt out. You just play a different role. Yeah. Okay.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah. Responsibility doesn't disappear.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

It's just redistributed.

[Jessica Wynne]

And it's worth noticing something across all of these examples.

[Jason]

Okay, what's the through line?

[Jessica Wynne]

So, in every case, women hold significant structural power over the property, inheritance, land, and the lineage. But in every case, the men retain the prestigious roles, the ritual authority, the formal political positions. So, yeah, women get the property and the work, but men keep the ceremony and the title.

[Jason]

So in the most famous matriarchies on earth, the women have the burden and the men still have the prestige.

[Listener or Guest Commentator]

Wow.

[Jessica Wynne]

Right?

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynne]

Which raises the question, what are we even looking for when we say matriarchy? Because that word is doing about six different jobs at once, and it's being paid.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What is it, 80 cents on the dollar for all of us?

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Exactly. So, I mean, but let's actually sort

[Jessica Wynne]

this out, because the distinctions matter enormously. And I think the definitions will make sense now that we've seen some real examples. So first you have matrilineal societies. These are the societies about descent and inheritance, like your family name and property. They all get traced through the mother. That tells you how a society organizes families. It does not tell you who holds power.

[Jason]

Ah, okay, that's an important caveat.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, yeah, it's a crucial caveat. Then you have matrilocal societies. This is when a couple marries, the husband moves into the wife's family home. Again, this is all about structure, not authority.

[Jason]

Ah. My trainer moved in with his wife in her house. So I guess tell him he's part of a matrilocal.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, he's matrilocal.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, there you go. So this guy moves in with her family.

[Jason]

Insert every mother in law joke ever told. But it doesn't necessarily mean women are shaping how power actually works.

[Jessica Wynne]

And then there's matrifocal, which are households centered around the mother as the primary social and emotional anchor. This brings women high status, and they often wield a lot of influence. Still not the same as political authority or any formal power, though.

[Jason]

Okay, so we've got a bunch of things that kind of look like matriarchy, but aren't actually even the same thing at all.

[Jessica Wynne]

Which leaves us with matriarchy proper. So this would mean women hold primary political, social, and moral authority. All formal power structures are female dominated. The problem here is that this kind of society is extremely hard to find.

[Jason]

Well, okay, Hard to find because it doesn't exist or what?

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, well, there's a few possibilities. One being that pure matriarchy might not exist. Or it's possible we've been looking for the wrong thing when we say matriarchy. Or maybe the historical record we're using wasn't written by people interested in recognizing matriarchy when and if it did ever exist.

[Jason]

But that's three different conclusions. So do we know which one might be the truth? I don't know.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, all three might be partially true, which is really uncomfortable.

[Jason]

Okay, but why does this definition mess even really matter? Because I feel like in popular conversation, yeah, you just say matriarchy, everyone just nods.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, it matters because the confusion distorts real societies. So from the Minang Kabau in Indonesia or the Khasi in northeastern India, they're constantly being misrepresented. A Western journalist visits, sees property passing through women and the family name coming from the mother, and then writes a piece about the world's Largest matriarchy. People there read it and think that's not what's happening here at all. They might be flattered, but they are bewildered.

[Jason]

So this is sort of amateur armchair sociology or anthropology romanticizing a different culture, kind of.

[Jessica Wynne]

But a lot of them are professionals

[Jason]

that should know that.

[Jessica Wynne]

Really? Armchair, you know. Yeah, but on the other side, you have anthropologists with a very strict checklist on matriarchy. And this means women must hold formal political power. So they look at a place like Menangkabao, see men in many official political and religious roles, and conclude that it's not a matriarchy. But that misses how power actually functions in that society.

[Jason]

So we're.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We're measuring this with the wrong tools

[Jason]

and we get the wrong answers.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, exactly. It's applying a Western framework, what power is supposed to look like, and using that to judge a system that may be organized very differently. And that's why these debates about matriarchy just go in circles. People arguing from different definitions without realizing they're not talking about the same thing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, so did matriarchy ever exist? Was there a prehistoric golden age where

[Jason]

women ran everything someplace before men showed up and invented bureaucracy?

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, people really like to think this. This is actually a claim with a very specific origin. It was formalized in 1861 by a Swiss scholar, Johann Jacob Bachofen. Maybe not formalized. Maybe invented is a better word for his theory.

[Jason]

Yeah, and in 1861. So this isn't exactly ancient wisdom from some papyrus scroll.

[Jessica Wynne]

Right.

[Jason]

This is a 19th century man with a theory.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, so it's just this Victorian guy. Bakofin argued that early human societies were organized around women and motherhood, and that over time, they evolved into patriarchy, which he saw as a more advanced stage of civilization.

[Jason]

Ooh, bold claim. Okay, so the guy who invented the idea of prehistoric matriarchy thought patriarchy was a good upgrade. Nice.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, he thought it was more advanced. Yeah, and that detail gets lost every time the theory gets reused. So later, Friedrich Engels, the German philosopher and co author of the Communist Manifesto, he connected the idea of matriarchy to capitalism.

[Jason]

Of course he did, but okay.

[Jessica Wynne]

Of course, he argued that the overthrow of what he called mother right, which basically meaning inheritance and family lineage passing through women, was the first major defeat of women. So he saw matriarchy's disappearance as linked to the rise of private property and class society. Then in the 1970s and 80s, parts of the feminist spirituality movement reshaped the whole thing into a story about a lost golden age of peace. And goddess worship that was violently destroyed by patriarchy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But that's the version people remember.

[Jason]

Some lost, peaceful world before, I don't know, men ruined it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I mean, I've heard that story a bunch.

[Jason]

I kind of get the appeal, but I don't know.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, but there's pretty much no evidence this prehistoric matriarchy actually happened. So the idea circulated widely in feminist organizing. Gloria Steinem talked about this. It spread in neopagan communities, in academic conferences and on network television. So the images of a prehistoric world where women were revered, society was peaceful and ecological, and men hadn't yet ruined everything. What's interesting is that the most rigorous takedown of this peaceful, matriarchal world narrative comes from a feminist scholar. Her name's Cynthia Eller. She wrote a book called the Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory. And it's genuinely one of the most carefully argued deconstructions of this cherished belief that I've ever read.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I feel like you're making enemies.

[Jason]

So, all right, what does she say?

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Sure.

[Jessica Wynne]

I know people are gonna say how anti feminist I am.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynne]

But her core argument is that the evidence offered for prehistoric matriarchy simply doesn't support the claim. And her evidence is strong. You know, you have female figurines found at archaeological sites, goddess imagery in ancient art, burial patterns suggesting high status for some women. That all feels really empowering. But Eller says, look, finding a statue of a woman does not tell you women ran the government. Finding goddess worship doesn't tell you women held political authority. So spiritual symbolism and public governance are very different things. And a male God is worshiped in most traditions, and that hasn't stopped most men from being excluded from power.

[Jason]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah. And then Eller makes a second argument that I think is even more interesting and more genuinely feminist. She argues the myth of matriarchal prehistory is actually bad for feminism. Even though it may feel empowering, that feels counterintuitive.

[Jason]

Why is the idea of a society run by women bad for feminism?

[Jessica Wynne]

Again, because of what it assumes. Women are right. In these stories of the matriarchal golden age, it always looks the same. Peaceful, nurturing, communal, close to nature. Women are cast as caregivers, consensus builders, and life givers. And Eller's point is, yes, that might sound empowering, and it flips the valuation, but it keeps the stereotype. So the same traits that have been used to exclude women from power are now being used to justify it.

[Jason]

So if the premise is the same you know, women are naturally nurturing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It doesn't matter if the conclusion is that they should be subordinate or that they should rule.

[Jason]

It's just the same box with a nicer label.

[Jessica Wynne]

Right, and the assumption goes completely unchallenged that women are all about care and emotion and men are about reason and hierarchy. Historically, that assumption has done a lot more harm than good because it frames women as submissive and men as dominant.

[Jason]

Okay, so the empowering myth of matriarchal

[Jordan Harbinger]

prehistory is in a weird way, running

[Jason]

on the same operating system as the thing that it's pushing back against.

[Jessica Wynne]

That's exactly her argument. And she goes further, saying that this myth didn't originate in feminism. The myth was originally created by men, Bakofin Engels and their intellectual heirs who thought of matriarchy as something humanity had correctly outgrown.

[Jason]

Savage.

[Jessica Wynne]

So the feminist version is a later reinterpretation, not the original idea.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show. We'll be right back. This episode was sponsored by the Perfect gene. You know when you throw on your usual jeans and they're like fine, not

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[Jordan Harbinger]

For details, don't forget about our newsletter. Wee bit wiser. It's a two minute read every Wednesday to your inbox. Very practical.

[Jason]

Something you can apply and use right away right out of the box.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's a nugget of wisdom or a gem from the show or our lives from us to you. Jordanharbinger.com News is where you can find it. Now back to Skeptical Sunday. I feel like I'm getting.

[Jason]

I'm taking like Women's Studies 102 right now in this episode of the show. I was not expecting this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, so that's a pretty devastating critique though.

[Jason]

So even the origin story comes from guys who thought, hey, good thing we moved past that nonsense. Am I right, guys?

[Jordan Harbinger]

But the argument that there's no evidence

[Jason]

for prehistoric matriarchy, it really depends on the historical record. And I think we should be at

[Jordan Harbinger]

least a little bit skeptical about whose record that is, because who wrote the record, right? Who decided what counted as authority and

[Jason]

what was worth documenting?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Jess, I'm picturing old sort of British

[Jason]

guys with monocles that, I don't know, hunt quail with those long rifles and wear those smoking jackets. And they're like, well, look at this

[Jordan Harbinger]

statue of a woman.

[Jason]

Clearly, they exalted women. And also, they're savages. So of course, the women were running things anyway.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Write that down in your little book

[Jason]

about why brown people are bad and our culture is superior and women are submissive.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

You're not far off, probably, because, of

[Jessica Wynne]

course, who wrote it? The answer is largely men from patriarchal societies. And they're working with their own assumptions about what power looks like. And those assumptions were not neutral.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So what assumptions are we talking about?

[Jessica Wynne]

Okay, so this is documented. It's not speculative. So when European colonial administrators, the ones you're imagining, arrived in West Africa, among the Akan, in what's now Ghana, they encountered societies where women held real political authority. There were female chiefs, female councils, female religious leaders. But when it came time to negotiate and sign treaties and establish colonial governance, they just couldn't process it. Europeans dealt almost exclusively with men because that's what authority looked like to them. The women's political roles were simply not legible to them. So they gave no respect to female power.

[Jason]

Okay, so they couldn't see it because they weren't looking for it.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah. I mean, the women's authority wasn't always invisible, but it was often treated as irrelevant. And over time, that selective recognition reshaped the actual power structure itself. So for the Europeans, acknowledging matriarchy would have complicated the story they were telling about the progress of civilization and who was qualified to govern. And the male designated authorities gained real power that the female authorities had previously held. And the colonial record showed a patriarchal society because the colonizers had created a more patriarchal society by only recognizing male authority and only communicating with men.

[Jason]

Oh, man.

[Jessica Wynne]

Behind the scenes, the women were quietly like, no, no, no. This is what you should do.

[Jason]

Yeah, this is so interesting. This is really extraordinary. So they didn't just misread the system. They actually helped change it by refusing to recognize it as it was. But then, quietly, the men were running to the women to confirm what they should do. If I'm a British guy or a Dutch colonizing someplace in Africa a couple hundred years ago, I roll in and

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm like, all right, I need to

[Jason]

speak to the man in charge. And it's like, that would be me. And I'm like, nah, miss, I want to talk to your husband, or whatever Right. Equivalent of that is, because I can't imagine I'd be dealing with this lady. So she's like, ah, okay, fine. So she goes and finds someone she trusts, and she's like, hey, you need to be the face of this, because they're only going to talk with you. They don't want to deal with me. And then, I don't know, 5000 years goes by or, I don't know, a few decades. And that guy's actually the one in charge because he's the only one who can do trade or negotiate treaties or set up business or anything like that with the Brits or the Dutch. And they're the ones who have all the resources that are funneling into this place. So basically, it just de facto becomes men in the government running things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's really.

[Jason]

Wow. I guess I didn't see that coming, but it makes perfect sense.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, it makes sense that it's just a little bit depressing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right?

[Jessica Wynne]

But you see the same pattern with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Iroquois nations in North America. The European historical records show male chiefs making decisions and signing treaties. What those records fail to mention is that those male chiefs were selected by senior women, the clan mothers, and they could be removed by them. So the women's authority was real and structurally embedded, but it was invisible to European observers who were looking for a chief who looked like a chief.

[Jason]

Yeah, like, excuse me, ma', am, can I speak to your husband? And it's like, he doesn't make any decisions.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What are you talking about? He's over there wearing a headdress. He's busy. He's my arm candy. Lucky.

[Jason]

It's me you want to deal with. Yeah. Okay.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So the women in power were smart

[Jason]

enough to basically know that dealing with Europeans meant the visible authority needed to be a guy. That's so interesting.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah. And if you only document the kind of authority you recognize, like titles and formal leaders, then you miss how power actually functions.

[Jason]

So when Eller, who you mentioned before, says, hey, there's no evidence for matriarchies,

[Jordan Harbinger]

she's not really wrong.

[Jason]

But at the same time, the archives, they have these significant blind spots because certain evidence was blind, basically ignored or erased.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, I mean, Eller would probably push back on that and say, even accounting for biased records, there's still no solid evidence for her prehistoric matriarchy. And she's probably right about that. Sorry to disappoint everybody, but absence of evidence in a biased record isn't proof something didn't exist, and it's not proof it did. So the honest answer here is, we

[Jordan Harbinger]

just don't know, which is not a satisfying answer. So that leaves us in an uncomfortable place.

[Jason]

And there's a lot of Time left to kill, so I hope you get more.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, well, intellectual honesty sometimes requires sitting with this uncertainty.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynne]

So the temptation, of course, is to fill that uncertainty with a story that feels good. A golden age, a lost harmony. But we don't need that story. The case for a more balanced society with gender equality doesn't depend on whether women were in charge 10,000 years ago. It stands on its own.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So is there anywhere we can actually

[Jason]

look for evidence of genuinely different ways of organizing society? Because we could probably use some options.

[Jessica Wynne]

Absolutely. I mean, instead of looking at myths and archaeological guesswork, we can look at living societies, places that exist right now that have been directly studied by anthropologists who can actually go there, ask questions and measure outcomes.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, actual data.

[Jason]

Always a risky move. So, okay, what do we find?

[Jessica Wynne]

So there's a lot of variation. Matrilineal systems, matrifocal systems, and hybrid structures which don't fit neatly into any category. They all exist. And one of the most comprehensive attempts to study this globally comes from the work of a German scholar. Her name is Heidi Gottner Abendroff. She spent decades documenting what she calls matriarchal societies across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. And this is based on field research, not myth or speculation. And her work focuses on living cultures, none of this prehistoric guesswork.

[Jason]

Okay, so she is pushing back on Eller, who says there's basically no real evidence for matriarchy.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, well, she's pushing back on the idea that we should throw the whole concept out. But here's where it gets complicated. Her definition of matriarchy is very different from what most people have in mind. So Abendroth is not describing female domination. She's describing societies that are matrilineal, egalitarian, and just organized around care, consensus, and redistribution. So in other words, not women on top, but a system that isn't built around domination at all.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Which sounds great, but is that really matriarchy?

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

I mean, that's the central tension in her work.

[Jason]

Right.

[Jessica Wynne]

So mainstream anthropologists and other critics argue she's redefining the term so broadly that it loses analytical meaning. So if matriarchy just means a relatively egalitarian society where women have high status, then you find a lot of nice societies where women have high status and you can call them matriarchies. But if the definition is that elastic, you know, what work is that word actually doing?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Jason]

Well, it's kind of like calling every pleasant neighborhood a utopia. The word loses all meaning, stops meaning anything specific.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, and her response is that the old Definition was already biased toward patriarchal assumptions. So if you define matriarchy as female domination, you're just importing the logic of patriarchy into the definition of its supposed alternative. You're assuming power must mean domination.

[Jason]

Okay, but what if the thing you're looking for is a society that doesn't organize itself around domination at all? For example, what word do you use for that?

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, I mean, maybe that's the real question, right? Not who's on top, but whether the system is organized around dominance as its central principle in the first place. We do need a new word. But first we have to figure out what kind of framework we should be working in. Because we're using the wrong one.

[Jason]

Which is either profound insight or a very convenient way to avoid being wrong.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think it might be both. So these ideas of, like, sharing and

[Jason]

redistribution, care, prioritizing community well being, that doesn't sound anthropological. It sounds like something economists argue about today.

[Jessica Wynne]

Oh, yeah, economists are definitely arguing. And scholars make similar points about how modern economies systematically undervalue care work, like raising children, caring for the elderly, maintaining social bonds, because none of that shows up in the gdp. And the result is economies that are very good at accumulating capital and very bad at producing human flourishing.

[Jason]

Okay, so. Yeah, because we measure what's easy and not necessarily what matters.

[Jessica Wynne]

Correct. You know, not perfect, not utopian. And there are functioning societies where redistribution, not accumulation, is the central organizing principle. So whether you call them matriarchal or not, it's almost secondary. The important point is that alternatives exist and they have measurable effects. You know, if we go back to the misuo, there was a research team in the 2010s that looked at specifically health outcomes across the misuo communities in China. So what makes this useful is that there are both matrilineal and patrilineal misuo villages. So researchers can compare the health outcomes within the same culture. The primary variable is the social structure. And across over a thousand participants, they measured biomarkers like C reactive protein and things which indicates chronic inflammation and blood pressure. And they found that women in matrilineal communities had significantly lower rates of both.

[Jason]

Okay, so are you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Are we saying husbands make women sick? Because I've been blaming the kids this whole time.

[Jason]

I might owe Janet a pretty significant retraction.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Yeah, yeah, you might. Or a massage or something. Yeah, you know, what I'm saying is

[Jessica Wynne]

that the studies show in patrilineal communities, about 8% of women showed elevated inflammation. In matrilineal communities, that dropped to 3.6%. So less than half. Hypertension showed a similar pattern. It was like 33% of women in patrilineal villages had high blood pressure compared to 26% in matrilineal ones. That's a big difference.

[Jason]

Yeah. So something about that structure is protective to your.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yes.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Heart and body. I don't think a lot of women

[Jason]

listening are going to be shocked by these findings at all, though.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynne]

Ladies, the data shows a strong correlation between men in power and your health. And the part that really landed for researchers is women in matrilineal communities. They weren't just healthier than women in patrilineal ones, they were on average, healthier than men in their own communities.

[Jason]

Wow. You know, this reminds me of those stats.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Have you ever seen stats on, like, what happens to men when they get

[Jason]

divorced and how their life and quality and health changes and what happens to women when they get divorced? And they're basically the spoiler is this. Everyone takes a lifestyle hit because you don't have maybe a shared income or the pooled resources or the man being a higher earner or whatever it is. But the women, their stress level goes way down. They live longer and the guys, like, die early, basically. I mean, I shouldn't laugh about that because it's sad, but yeah, it's very similar directional data. I can see the merch now. Matriarchy makes women healthier than men. I mean, that's. That's a pretty crazy conclusion. Here it is.

[Jessica Wynne]

And it, a lot of it too,

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

has to do with what you're raised

[Jessica Wynne]

to think is normal, like if you need a partner or not. But the data shows a strong relationship. Sure, but it doesn't prove a single cause. So don't get too hard on yourself, guys. What the researchers point to are two factors, autonomy and social support. The matrilineal structure creates conditions for both.

[Jason]

Yeah. And the men, what happened to the men in the matrilineal communities? Health wise. Because if you empower the women and they gain benefits, but the men take a health hit, half the population still loses.

[Listener or Guest Commentator]

Right.

[Jason]

It's sort of zero sum ish, right?

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah. I mean, that's what makes this finding significant. There's no strong evidence of a major health penalty for men. So differences are really small. The men in the matrilineal villages had a hypertension rate about 1 percentage point higher than men in the patrilineal villages. So it's a very small difference.

[Jason]

So no one is getting crushed under the matriarchal boot. Disappointing for some people out there. I'm sure.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Does the current system, does it cost

[Jason]

men anything in terms of what their lives look like?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because I feel like one of the

[Jason]

things that doesn't get examined in discussions of patriarchy versus it's so funny. I never say that word. It just sounds funny to me when I say of patriarchy versus alternatives. So what are men actually experiencing under the current system? And what might they experience differently?

[Jessica Wynne]

Well, the question is important because this isn't a man hating conversation. I want to be really clear. It connects to something important about what men in misuo communities actually report. So anthropologists who've spent time in these communities describe men as largely content, including men who are aware of the more patriarchal alternatives available elsewhere in China. Their identity isn't organized around being a provider or a head of household or an authority figure. It's organized around kinship and craft and community.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And that sounds appealing compared to the

[Jason]

pressure a lot of men face in more traditional systems. Be the provider, be in charge. Don't fall apart. Don't cry in front of your wife because your mom passed away. That's weak, right?

[Jessica Wynne]

You have to be the breadwinner. And yeah, all of those pressures. And this is where Erich Fromm, who's a mid 20th century German social psychologist, is useful. So his basic argument is that rigid hierarchical societies push people into two roles, domination or submission.

[Jason]

Fun options. Both.

[Jessica Wynne]

Depends what you're into, I guess.

[Jason]

But yeah, no kink shaming on Skeptical Sunday.

[Jessica Wynne]

And men typically get pushed toward the dominance role. But even when that works, it comes with a cost, right? Men experience emotional isolation, all these pressures, and a really narrow version of what you're allowed to be.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So you win the game. But it's a pretty bleak prize.

[Jessica Wynne]

Sure, you know, you get the status, but you lose access to vulnerability. Like you said, crying in front of people, genuine dependence on others, and all the things that actually make people feel connected.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So it's not really power then, it's pressure.

[Jessica Wynne]

I mean, that's the trade. And crucially, Fromm's key point is that this isn't biology. Men aren't inherently dominant. Women aren't inherently submissive. These are patterns created by social arrangements, which means they can change. And when you look at a place like the misuo, where male identity isn't built around dominance or provision in the same way, men seem by most accounts fine and content.

[Jason]

Even less man as job description.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, exactly. Less pressure to perform a role that cuts you off from half yourself. And that points to something bigger than matriarchy versus patriarchy, which is. I mean, this question, it really isn't about gender. It's about what any society loses when it organizes itself around dominance as a first principle. So men lose access to care and vulnerability. Women lose access to authority and autonomy. Everyone loses something. And the data from societies that organize differently, you know, they're not perfect, but they're different, suggest those losses don't have to be inevitable.

[Jason]

Okay, so you don't need some sort of prehistoric matriarchal golden age to make the argument.

[Jessica Wynne]

You really don't. And leaning on one actually weakens the case because then people argue about the history instead of engaging with the reality in front of them.

[Jason]

Right. Okay.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So if it existed before, we're recovering

[Jason]

something, not trying something new.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But this gets tricky, I think, because we've been talking about women.

[Jason]

Like that's one experience, you know, And I've heard again, I'm Women's Studies 102 over here. Like, it's not one thing to just be like a woman in the world. You know, there's all kinds of stuff that intersects with that.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Right?

[Jessica Wynne]

And you can say the same thing for men. I mean, just look at your friend group. You know, there's some women are more masculine than some of your guy friends. That's just how it is. And there's a scholar named Kimberly Crenshaw. She makes this essential point with her theory on intersectionality. So gender doesn't operate alone. It interacts with race and class and culture. So a black woman's experience of patriarchy, it's not patriarchy plus racism. It's a different experience entirely. And it's shaped by how all those forces interact.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Momentous. When people talk about energy recovery performance, they usually jump straight to workouts, protein or supplements. But one of the most overlooked pieces is gut health. If your gut is not dialed in,

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[Jordan Harbinger]

This episode is sponsored in part by Quilt Mind. If you're not on LinkedIn, you're probably making a mistake. Not because it's so cool, but because it's practical. If you're trying to get hired, recruiters are there. If you run a business, people are absolutely looking you up before they take you seriously. LinkedIn is your built in credibility. This person really exists. Check. But here's the bigger having a profile and never posting. Most people treat LinkedIn like some kind of static resume. The moment you start posting consistently, you stand out, because almost nobody does. Every time I post, I get DMs from people I haven't talked to in years. Like man, that hit home. Suddenly I'm top of Mind. That turns into intros, partnerships, opportunities. That's not luck, it's visibility. And that's why I use Quilt Mind. They help busy execs get LinkedIn famous. In about 30 minutes a week. I do a quick call. They pull out my stories and insights, turn them into short, punchy posts that sound like me. And they keep me accountable because my default setting is I'll do it later

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[Jordan Harbinger]

And I'll share stuff there that I don't really talk about on the podcast. So if you're curious, look me up on LinkedIn. If you want Quilt Mind, email jordanadiancewiltmind.com that's JordanAudience. U I L T M I N D COM. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps the

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[Jordan Harbinger]

All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable on the [e-mail] deals now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday.

[Jason]

Now we're in Women's Studies 201. And it's starting to so even a matriarchy could still be terrible for some women, I suppose, right? A society that centers women's authority could still be really unequal, so it doesn't

[Jordan Harbinger]

mean equity all around.

[Jason]

It's not automatically a Happy ending. So when we talk about matriarchy as an alternative to patriarchy, we need to ask matriarchy for whom?

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, I mean, and history gives us examples of that.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynne]

Look at parts of the suffrage movement in the United States that centered around white women's rights while excluding all the others.

[Jason]

That's a good point. And we should also remember that societies with different structures are not happening in a vacuum either.

[Jessica Wynne]

Right? Yeah. This isn't a controlled experiment. There are real societies with a lot of forces acting on it at once.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So the thing we think of as

[Jason]

isolating, so this matrilineal structure or whatever, it's not ever isolated. And it can't be in 2026 anyways. I suppose.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, of course. Which. But that also doesn't invalidate the findings, but it does mean we should be careful about how much we claim the findings prove.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think there's a risk in a

[Jason]

conversation framed as skeptical Sunday matriarchy that the audience might hear like, matriarchy is fake. So what are we actually skeptical of here?

[Jessica Wynne]

So we are well justified in being skeptical of the idea of this prehistoric golden age of matriarchy. The evidence just isn't there as much as so many people want it to be. And we should be skeptical of the idea that matriarchy is just this mirror image idea of patriarchy with women dominating men. Because that just imports the same logic. It assumes these fixed biological traits, that men and women are naturally wired in a certain way. And we're justified in being skeptical of these biological stereotypes in either direction. So women are not naturally more nurturing, men are not naturally more dominant. Those claims just don't hold up. These are patterns produced by social arrangements, and social arrangements can change.

[Jason]

Men are from Mars, women are from a better marketing team.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Right.

[Jessica Wynne]

And that idea is seductive. Right. So you see it all the time in sci fi. These matriarchal worlds are shown one of two ways. Either hyper peaceful and harmonious utopias or just as violent and hierarchical as patriarchy, but with women in charge.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So even when we imagine something different,

[Jason]

just repaint the same system. That's kind of. Yeah, I guess funny is not the right word, but you know what I mean.

[Jessica Wynne]

Ironic, maybe. I don't know.

[Jason]

Yeah, but sure, let's go with that.

[Jessica Wynne]

We're still defining power as domination. You see versions of this in things like Wonder Woman's a good example. You know, she comes from this isolated, idealized female society. And there's darker depictions of her world where it's basically patriarchy flipped. But in both Cases, it's still built on the same assumption that power means domination. Sometimes it just dresses sexier and it

[Jason]

has a cool plane.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So we're just distorting the idea of

[Jason]

which gender is in charge, not what they're in charge of.

[Jessica Wynne]

Right. We're still working inside the same framework. So different ways of organizing society exist and they have real effects on people's lives. That part is well documented.

[Jason]

Which is a sign the framework is the problem, not the society.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, so the goal is not flipping

[Jason]

the hierarchy, it's asking whether hierarchy itself is the right model and who should be on top.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, it might not look like anyone on top. You know, there's different ways to be on top. I guess a society based on equity might look like systems organized solely around care, reciprocity and support, not domination.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So it's not a gender swap, it's a different structure.

[Jessica Wynne]

Right. Which means this doesn't have to be a fight. It can be a question about what actually works.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So we did not find a lost

[Jason]

matriarchal utopia or evidence that women ran the world 10,000 years ago. It's just much less satisfying, but I guess more useful. And the way we organize society is not fixed. Right. We're choosing it whether we admit to that or not. And we should make the choices that make people healthier, more connected and more human.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, I mean, we should. I agree completely. And I think the word matriarchy may be doing a disservice because as well as the word patriarchy, because it immediately puts people into a gender war. Is it accumulation, hierarchy and dominance or is it care, consensus, redistribution? You know, those are genuinely different options. And the evidence from societies that lean toward the second set of values suggests tentatively, carefully, that people in those societies across genders tend to do better by

[Jason]

various measures of well being and calling that matriarchy. That may be both accurate in some structural sense, but also misleading in terms of what it actually means for the people living in it.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, I mean, keep considering the misuo. They have their own vocabulary for their own arrangements. But Westerners come along and impose a category that comes loaded with a whole set of Western assumptions about what power is and what gender means. And we've applied it to a society that may be organized around fundamentally different premises.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Did you come across any sort of

[Jason]

non binary gender systems or are we stuck in the two lane matriarchy, patriarchy highway?

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, I mean, this is a crucial point. So some societies don't organize around a strict male, female binary at all. And when that's the Case calling something female led can miss the entire structure.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It makes sense that if people occupy

[Jason]

other genders and roles, then the category of matriarchy is simply. It's just not the right tool.

[Wix Harmony Announcer]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynne]

It's just another sign that the framework needs revision rather than the evidence needs to be squeezed into that framework that exists and really isn't working.

[Jason]

Yeah, well, the conversation has to change completely. It seems almost impossible to talk about this in a non binary way. I'm almost being cheeky because it's like we're trying to wrap our heads around female led society and I'm like, aha, what if we throw another wrench in there? I don't know. Again, this is like women's studies slash some sort of woke college class that I'm trying to sift through.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Through here we have to be looking

[Jason]

at power dynamics in society as. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but gender fluid.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So what is the vocabulary for that

[Jason]

is what we have to figure out.

[Jessica Wynne]

We could lean into some kind of genderless Archy, I guess, you know, sure.

[Jason]

How about Barbie Archy? Not the movie, not the female version of the doll. But you know how they have that smooth, featureless Ken doll situation down there with no confusing parts?

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Yeah, a private partless philosophy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's what I'm going for.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

I'm for it.

[Jessica Wynne]

You know, if we could take gender out of the equation, there might be more equity. I grew up playing in an orchestra and when you would audition for things, they changed it so that it wasn't the men getting all the good seats in the orchestra. And there were really specific rules. The judges would sit and you would perform behind some kind of barrier. They couldn't see you. And so the big rule if you were a woman was mostly don't wear shoes at all.

[Jason]

They can tell when you walk over because of your heels.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, they could tell by what shoes you were wearing. So it was this really particular thing of, oh my gosh, like I have to wear soft soled shoes for my audition.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Otherwise they'll know I'm a woman and

[Jessica Wynne]

how horrible that would be.

[Jason]

Don't wear any perfume or anything.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

So it's like imagine if we could

[Jessica Wynne]

run political campaigns and not know if

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

the person was male or female.

[Jessica Wynne]

How would that change who we voted for?

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Things like that. But I like what you're thinking about this. Genderless ideas. But I think it's all a bit

[Jessica Wynne]

more nuanced in reality.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So how did that.

[Jason]

Did it work? Did they end up with like a 50, 50 ish split in the orchestra.

[Jessica Wynne]

It was upsetting how much it worked. How many more women got seats in the orchestras? Yeah.

[Jason]

Wow. Okay. Just curious.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think it's hard for people to

[Jason]

not look at the matriarchy patriarchy conversation as taking sides. I mean, right now, a lot of people probably find themselves uncomfortable with some of what we're talking about. It can be that way. I mean, I'm a little bit like, oh, sheesh, I've used the word patriarchy more than I have in my entire life during the past hour.

[Jessica Wynne]

Right. The vocabulary is uncomfortable, you know, but it doesn't have to be. I think the vocabulary is uncomfortable because the definitions are pretty wishy washy. You know, we can treat it as a question and work out solutions that bring more balance. Different societies, they've tried different arrangements. Some of those arrangements produce better outcomes by measurable standards, some of them don't, but we can study that without turning it into some manifesto.

[Jason]

Okay, so matriarchal societies are not a blueprint, it's just data.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Which means change is possible.

[Jason]

I suppose. I mean, the health outcome thing is no joke. That's crazy.

[Jessica Wynne]

And ignoring that has real consequences. So if increasing women's autonomy is linked to better health outcomes and we dismiss it out of discomfort, we're choosing ideology over evidence.

[Jason]

Yeah, well, people are doing a lot of that these days.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But what else are we missing by

[Jason]

framing the debate incorrectly, in your opinion?

[Jessica Wynne]

Well, for one, I mean, we touched on it earlier, but what these systems cost men. So conversations about feminism, you know, we want all these allies, but we also need to include what masculinity does. It causes emotional isolation. It does mean shorter lifespans, higher suicide rates. Those are separate issues. But they come from the same structures that disadvantage women. They're just the other side of the same coin.

[Jason]

And the matriarchy conversation almost never really goes there.

[Jessica Wynne]

Yeah, because it's framed as a conversation about women's liberation, which it is, but it points at something bigger. A social arrangement that probably doesn't look like women on top any more than it looks like men on top.

[Jason]

I'm trying to not be a 12 year old boy here in this episode, specifically.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right, okay.

[Jason]

And just to be clear, when we say women on. Yeah, let's keep it scientific. How's that?

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Okay, sure.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Don't say reverse cowgirl, Jordan.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Don't say that's what you wanted to say. I knew it. What we're really talking about is something that doesn't organize itself around domination at all.

[Jessica Wynne]

Building something like that is a project that benefits men as much as women.

[Jason]

Okay. And the project, it doesn't need to dig up some weird golden age of feminist Amazon whatever with pyramids to justify it.

[Jessica Wynne (additional voice or agreement)]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynne]

It just needs honest observation, intellectual humility, and the willingness to look at what human beings are actually capable of when they're not being told that hierarchy is the only option.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The problem is so many people are turned off by an egalitarian society and

[Jason]

they want more resources than everybody else. People in that society, I don't mean people listening to this, going to be annoyed that there's a society that's equal. I just mean living in a society like that, they want that hierarchy.

[Jessica Wynne]

They want to be better than other people. I know. I mean, now we're getting into the philosophy of power being applied in whatever social norms were raised in. So that might be a conversation for another episode. Maybe.

[Jason]

Maybe. I don't know.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is like. It's weird because it's not a woke

[Jason]

episode, but I feel like somehow it is because we're talking about these topics that I just. We never actually talk about anywhere. When I was talking about this topic with you pre show, no resources came up easily that wasn't something ridiculous or sci fi based. So while we managed to talk about matriarchy on Mother's Day without anybody storming off. Cool. That might be the most successful family dynamic we will have all day.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So happy Mother's Day, everybody. Call your mom.

[Jason]

She's earned it. Thanks so much, Jess.

[Jessica Wynne]

Ask her who's on top.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Jessica Wynne]

Oh, God.

[Jason]

You heard it from her, not me. At least you said it, not me. Thanks, Jess.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And thank you all for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday to me. Jordanordanharbinger.com advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, [e-mail] deals I'm ordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

[Jason]

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Jessica is on her substacks between the lines and where shadows linger.

[Jason]

We'll link to those in the show notes. Her work is on Instagram @nevermetjessicas.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And this show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Tata Sidlowskis, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I might be a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Also, we try to get these as right as we can. Not everything is gospel, even if it's fact checked.

[Jason]

So consult a qualified professional before applying

[Jordan Harbinger]

anything you hear on the show, especially if it's about your health and well being. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please

[Jason]

share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism and knowledge that we doled out today.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and

[Jason]

we'll see you next time.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We'll spend hours optimizing diets, workouts and morning routines, then sit in rooms with air bad enough to quietly wreck our focus, mood and sleep. After the LA wildfires, air quality expert Mike Feldstein saw just how toxic invisible can get and why fear, misinformation and neglect are making it worse.

[Listener or Guest Commentator]

My background was in wildfire remediation, floods, hurricane cleanup. So my career was traveling around to Hurricane Harvey and California wildfires. Like wherever the most toxic disasters were, that's where I would go. The reason that I got into Jasper making these air scrubbers is because the machines that we would use on the job site were these big, large industrial machines. And when you would compare that to little air purifiers in the store, I was able to see like, these little things don't work. Basically, let's make the world's first air scrubber design for your home. So now I'm kind of on a mission to just talk about air quality. Anyone who's thinking about water and hasn't thought about air, my mission for the next 20 years is to increase people's awareness of the air that you breathe. In the mold industry, they have two sayings. One is the mold rush and the other one is mold is gold. A lot of people get triggered by mold, but it's become a very fear induced industry because there is a dark side of the mold industry. Not everybody's a bad actor, but you have to be quite careful when you're navigating it. People often go into debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars, rip their homes apart, move into apartments or homes that were moldier than their first home, and debt and stress, and then they get much more sick. So I've been seeing this increasing at a large scale and that's why as a mold remediation guy, how would we do mold removal? We'd remove the physical mold and we would scrub the air. It was very simple. The average indoor air is five to ten times dirtier than outside. When you turn your bedroom into a clean air sanctuary, your body can heal itself. If you get out of the way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you think clean air is a given, check out episode 1246 with Mike Feldstein. It might completely change how you think about the air you're breathing right now.

[Wix Harmony Announcer (additional voice)]

In a world where business owners everywhere are burning out.

[Jessica Wynne]

I just can't do it anymore.

[Wix Harmony Announcer (additional voice)]

And are losing their identities to AI,

[Wix Harmony Announcer]

who even am I?

[Wix Harmony Announcer (additional voice)]

Only one website builder can save humanity from generic websites.

[Jessica Wynne]

It's here. It's really here.

[Wix Harmony Announcer (additional voice)]

Wick's Harmony. Where AI meets hands on control. So you can build the website you want exactly the way you want. Try it for [e-mail] Harmony how did

[Wix Harmony Announcer]

you get your website to look like that? Mine's so basic. Thanks. I just used Wix Harmony. What's that? It's wix's AI website builder. You just tell it what you want and it builds you a whole site. But you can also switch back and forth between chatting with AI and editing things yourself. Ah, so you're not stuck with whatever the AI gives you. Nope. I mean, the results are pretty nice, but you can jump in and mess with whatever. Oh, that's neat. Try it for [e-mail] Harmony running a

[Jason]

business means checking a lot of boxes. Let's see.

[Wix Harmony Announcer]

Payroll, check. Inventory check.

[Jessica Wynne]

Insurance.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Ugh.

[Listener or Guest Commentator]

Good thing Simply Business makes getting small

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

business insurance fast and easy.

[Jessica Wynne]

Check insurance off your [e-mail].