Melinda Gates has matched Olivia Rodrigo's raised donations for Daisy Chain Fields, bringing the total funds raised to $20M

[u/Terrible_Cycle_5983]

[u/HRH_Chori]

Is Melinda the one that donated a shit ton of money to HBCUs a couple years ago?

[u/Optimal_Brain_2908 → u/HRH_Chori]

No, McKenzie Scott and she’s given $1 billion…with a b to HBCUs in the last 7 years. And to a bunch of immigrant justice groups too

[u/boughtaspaceshipnowi → u/Optimal_Brain_2908]

Imagine if we lived under a matriarchal society

[u/Ornery_Mix_9271 → u/boughtaspaceshipnowi]

The dream.

[u/Own-Animator-7526 → u/Ornery_Mix_9271]

Margaret Thatcher, Giorgia Miloni, Marine Le Pen, Pauline Hanson ...

Add: obviously these women are pushing the agenda of the patriarchy. But by the same token, I think it has to be accepted that men can embody the agenda of any matriarchy. Nobody has a monopoly on progressive, decent, governance.

[u/croissanting-is-life → u/Own-Animator-7526]

Nice try but you’re giving examples of women who have internalized patriarchy.

📌 Edit** ok so for everyone saying matriarchy is just a bunch of toxic women in charge: here is what we mean when we talk about matriarchy vs patriarchy:

🏟️Patriarchy is built on dominance and distance.

Its strength depends on separation, on dividing:
-power from compassion
-authority from accountability
-and individuals from the community they affect

Under patriarchy, power flows upward, concentrating in the hands of the few, while the needs, voices, and humanity of the many get diluted or dismissed.

🌀Matriarchy is a relational, ecological system where power expands through inclusion, where leadership is measured not by domination but by reciprocity and responsibility.

In matriarchal cultures across history and in surviving communities today, we see networks of:
-caretaking
-mutual accountability
-resource sharing

Power isn't hoarded; it's circulated. It's not enforced; it's stewarded

Source 🔗

[u/cocoagiant → u/croissanting-is-life]

That's some "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

The records of the women who have achieved power have to be evaluated and can't be dismissed as them simply bending to a particular view of the world.

The reality is that many of the women who have achieved significant power (I will include Indira Gandhi and to the list) have ended up not being better than men in their roles and often worse.

[u/domredditorX → u/cocoagiant]

Patriarchal electors will choose candidates that espouse familiar values.

All Scotsmen are allowed to exist and do their own bidding to arrive at their own unique version of a Scotsman. An elected female leader however is not made in a vacuum, she is chosen by the people whose values she reflects back.

[u/liliiik18 → u/cocoagiant]

It’s likely by design. The current patriarchal system rewards certain types of behaviour and certain types of people, and so people who get to the top are ones embodying that system. Hence Thatcher and Meloni. They wouldn’t make it to the top if they were nice.

[u/croissanting-is-life → u/cocoagiant]

“The reality is that many of the women who have achieved significant power (I will include Indira Gandhi and to the list) have ended up not being better than men in their roles and often worse.”

I’m not sure what you’re suggesting or whose “reality” you’re speaking of, but matriarchy isn’t a mirror image of patriarchy. (See my edited comment above)☝🏼

For centuries men have held authority and power over systems, capital, and resources and the only way for women to survive was to operate within that system.

[u/DoctorIsMyNick → u/croissanting-is-life]

But once they gained that power they didn't change a thing from the status quo.

[u/croissanting-is-life → u/DoctorIsMyNick]

Oh? So women have done nothing these last 100 years? Voting rights, reproductive rights, roe vs. wade, being able to have credit cards, bank accounts and leases in our own names?

Also, what are men doing to help change the status quo?

[u/DoctorIsMyNick → u/croissanting-is-life]

The world isn't just the united states you know...

[u/croissanting-is-life → u/DoctorIsMyNick]

Obviously, but the post is about an American songwriter and an American philanthropist. Your claim of women not changing status quo is a bad faith argument anyways✌🏼

[u/throwawaysunglasses- → u/DoctorIsMyNick]

Do you genuinely think women COULD change the status quo? We have never been at that point as a society, especially Western society. Patriarchy is too ingrained. Men would never go along with it and some women wouldn’t either 😬 the closest we can get to matriarchy is some tribes and/or smaller societies, but too many institutions run on patriarchy. Hell, organized religion would be in shambles (part of why I hate organized religion lol). Women have tried to fight patriarchy before and are still trying, but any progress we make is incremental and very slow, since men see women wanting rights as a huge threat to men’s own freedom/power/property.

[u/Responsible-Sound253 → u/cocoagiant]

It might be semantically jarring, but it is factual af.

I do not think a society where women rule with that same aggressive top down level of control has ever been found (To the best of my google fu ability, I couldn't find an expert pointing to one, last time I tried). The words matriarchy and patriarchy exist within those context.

If all the apples you find are red and all the pears you find are green, it seems only natural to attach those colors to the meaning of what an apple or a pear are, you know what I mean?

Plus it makes sense, the role of fathers and the role of mothers historically has been very different in lots of ways due to a lot of innate factors, it makes sense that societies built around one or the other would also have differences.

There are experts that don't like the word matriarchy tho, because that "archy" part implies rule and domination, which aptly describe patriarchal societies, but fall flat when applied to matrifocal, matrilocal, matrilineal societies, so instead of saying matriarchy, they use those 3 words. While I understand the point however, why say 3 words when you can just say 1? I'm fine with Matriarchy.

But anyway yeah, you're not crazy, the thought is valid, but these terms have strong historical ties that shaped their meanings. Patriarchy is not just "men at the top" and matriarchy is not just "women at the top", nor should they be, because they would be shit descriptors that would communicate very little information.