Femtocracy
There is something called feminism which I have difficulty understanding. It has something to do with equal rights in a world created by men for the benefit of men. It is not at all clear what is feminine about this.
Male-dominated economies prioritise the accumulation of power and wealth over the basic needs of women and their families. There are states that are home to millionaires where the tap water of some towns is unsafe to drink. What mother would want this?
It is clear from history that whatever is good for women and their children is good for everyone. When women are given the means, they invest in safe drinking water for their children. They do not invest in casinos and rockets before these basic needs are met. Everyone benefits from safe drinking water, while very few benefit from rockets and casinos. There is a basic logic to this, once exposed, that reveals how crazy capitalism/patriarchy can be. There is a clear need for a feminism that does not seek to participate in the craziness.
Working Style
There is a female working style, which deserves a name and which deserves institutionalisation. When a team is half or more male, the themes of competition and dominance arise subtly or less subtly, to define the culture of the working group. There are leaders, there are followers, there is responsibility and blame. When a team is 60% or more female, coöperation becomes the defining theme. There is less emphasis on blame and more emphasis on recovery.
There needs to be a way for a company to announce to job candidates, “Our working groups are femcentric,” in order to attract the candidates most disposed to participating in it.
Smashing
In 19th century colleges, it was very common for incoming students to seek out mentorships with senior students. These were passionate relationships, although only a minority were sexual. It was familiar to the earliest students, which suggests that it was a girlhood expectation at the time. It had seemingly been around for a long time, although undocumented by history’s published authors, men.
Smashing relationships evidently had a healthy effect on college culture, in as much as only the most attractive students spread their influence. This was a part of human culture that was documented only when there were women with the literacy to do it themselves, and once it was discovered, was crushed by a fearful patriarchy.
Health Care
Women have been the living repository of humanity’s health care knowledge for nearly all of its history. Very few women now carry that torch due to modern liability concerns. In many countries, health care is a profit-making business, so a mother’s knowledge has been replaced with a mother’s income-earning ability. This is not actually the most responsible way, in as much as a mother’s chronic absence leads to problems of different kinds. One can see a responsible approach by looking at Switzerland’s health care system. Health care in Switzerland is expensive, and it is privately-funded, like in Massachusetts. However, there is a pharmacy system that operates at the first line of reception. Would-be patients first consult their pharmacists, where a large number of problems can be treated with a little trial and error. The pharmacist is quick to refer the customer to a medical doctor when the case is serious enough to warrant it. But the upshot is this: clinics and hospitals have less traffic.
There was a time when mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters consulted each other about family cases and did their best to deal with it. There were times and places in history in which this was the only affordable or available option.
Negative Expenses
Prior to the industrial revolution, women had very few career options. What they could do was create negative expenses. For example, 19th century farm wives produced very little litter; they were consummate recyclers. Clothes were mended by hand, and when beyond mending, were turned into rags, and when these were beyond use, were woven into mudroom rugs. Food scraps were thrown into an on-going stew and cooked until unrecognisable and newly edible. Gardening and canning put healthy food on the table without the need for currency.
As long as women care for infants, they lack the mobility and availability of their male counterparts. Here, there is a need to recognise that negative expenses are just as real from a book-keeping perspective as income. This is a part of a functioning household, whether matrilineal or not. It is a profession, even if it is a temporary one.
Matrilineal ownership of residences
This is described in The Salt Island Diaries, so here I would just say that there are decisions to be made about who participates as non-owners, under what conditions. This is the institutional part. This is the part that determines what roles males may play in the scheme. The focus, however, is what is good for women and their children.
Summary
There are things that feminism can mean that do not reference the priorities of men. But these are all things that threaten men’s power and profitability. These are fair losses to take, if it means a sustainable future.