A reading list for a matriarchal world

What to read when you’re ready to grow beyond patriarchy.

Since becoming a public voice on matriarchy, I’ve been asked a few times about which books I’d recommend to learn more about this system and way of life.

There are many ways to gain knowledge, but I have always loved reading, which I liken to diving into another person’s heart and mind. It’s a great privilege and honor to be able to read, to intimately soak in the knowledge of others across time and cultures.

In the spirit of not gatekeeping, I have decided to curate a reading list for anyone ready to learn the ways of a world beyond patriarchy. These are books that have deeply shaped the woman I am today and informed my work on matriarchy and intersectional ecofeminism.

This list is by no means complete. It is a finite handful of works that have shaped my thinking and spirit. There are so many more, but I hope these spark something in you, inspiring you to start your own matriarchal bookshelf.

My work defines matriarchy as a social system built around values of love, regeneration, reciprocity, and community. This is in contrast to the social system of patriarchy, which is built around values of domination, exploitation, greed, and individualism. Though the majority of these books do not mention matriarchy explicitly, their ideas contribute to the growth of matriarchal values.

I have tried to create loose categories for your convenience, but many of these books could fluidly fit multiple genres. I hope you find it useful. I will try to keep the list updated as I discover more.

Matriarchal Studies

These books name matriarchal social systems explicitly, writing from the perspective that they have always existed. Using history, anthropology, economics, and intuitive wisdom, these texts offer visionary frameworks to help us restore what was always ours: a just society rooted in balance and care.

• Matriarchal Societies of the Past and the Rise of Patriarchy: West Asia and Europe by Heide Göttner-Abendroth - This is a foundational text for anyone who wants to understand the study of matriarchal societies, written in accessible yet rigorous scientific language.

• Re-Inventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion and Culture by Ifi Amadiume - This book examines how matriarchy has always been alive in Africa, and how European colonization erased and suppressed this history.

• The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom, and Power by Barbara G. Walker. - Our culture is rife with anti-aging sentiments; this book restores power to the figure of the crone.

• Women and the Gift Economy: A Radically Different Worldview is Possible, edited by Genevieve Vaughan, multiple authors.

• Matriarchy by Nergiz - My upcoming book, which explores both the imminent collapse of patriarchy and what it means to live matriarchally now. Support the birth of the book here.

Indigenous Knowledge Systems

Colonialist patriarchy has taught many of us not only what to think, but how to think. These works by Indigenous scholars serve to reindigenize the mind, helping us cultivate the matriarchal values that Indigenous societies have long protected and embodied.

• Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask: Anishinaabe Botanical Teachings by Mary Siisip Geniusz - At its core, this book is about the interconnectedness of all life. It is impossible to come away from reading this without feeling profound gratitude for plants, and recognition of self in the Earth.

• Daughters of Mother Earth: The Wisdom of Native American Women by Barbara Alice Mann

• The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions by Paula Gunn Allen

• Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future by Patty Krawec - Trust and community have always been lacking in Western societies, but in collapse, Indigenous kinship is ripe to be discovered and honored. This book offers both a critique and an invitation to repair and recreate humanity’s collective future.

Black Feminist Thought

Black women experience the brunt of patriarchal systems, both in the West and on a global scale. Their scholarly work holds the blueprint for building a truly liberated future where power is reclaimed and communities are centered around care.

• All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks - a keystone feminist work, which rigorously explores love as the antidote to domination, a value that permeates the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” systems we currently live under.

• The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House by Audre Lorde

• When I Dare to Be Powerful by Audre Lorde - there is some overlap between this and the previous book, but these are incredibly powerful and transformative essays. I don’t think anyone can truly break free from patriarchy without reading Lorde’s work.

• Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall - Mainstream feminist movements have long centered whiteness and exclusively helped the already privileged. This book calls feminism back to where it belongs: an ethos of justice that includes all women.

Nonviolent Theory

We can’t dismantle violent systems using violent tools. These books explore resistance techniques and societal transformation without replication of harm.

• Strength to Love by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - A classic foundational text on the spiritual and political practice of nonviolence. I am not Christian, but I found this book beautiful and life-changing.

• Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm by Kazu Haga - an essential manual for these times of collapse. He recently released another book called Fierce Vulnerability, which I am excited to read.

• Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships by Marshall B. Rosenberg - a practical manual for integrating nonviolence in your relationships.

• The Fearless Heart is a practical and educational online collection of resources and writings by Miki Kashtan and the Nonviolent Global Liberation organization.

Women’s Spirituality and Herstory

In recent history, patriarchy has claimed the divine and framed it as masculine. But women’s spiritual power has always been potent and ancient. These books trace the long history of the goddess and the sacred feminine.

• Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women by Sylvia Brinton Perera

• Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100 by Max Dashu

• The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler - This book has introduced countless people to a grounded and real alternative to patriarchy, rooted in humanity’s ancient past. I interpret Eisler’s theory of partnership societies as matriarchal.

• The Great Cosmic Mother by Monica Sjöö - I read this book during postpartum night feedings, and it feels like a fever dream. A beautiful, artistic, and logical exploration of the history of the Goddess.

• The Spiral Dance by

  Starhawk
  - A fellow Substack author, Starhawk has been an integral figure in shining a light on the movement of the Goddess for the past half century (she has also personally inspired my interest in permaculture).

• When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone

• Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

• The Language of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas - I highly recommend this episode of the documentary series “From the Goddess” by Laura Hirch for a deeper look into Marija’s courageous life and world-changing work.

Body Connection & Sacred Sexuality

Reclaiming our bodies and our sensual pleasure is fundamental to creating liberated systems. These books explore sensuality and the erotic as a powerful tool to connect with body and Earth.

• Sex Matters by Osho

• The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor

• Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power by Audre Lorde - a standalone essay that can and should be read again and again.

• Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth and the Politics of the Body by Riane Eisler

Motherhood

Becoming a mother fundamentally reshapes the self. These works speak to this transformation, dismantling the patriarchal narratives that isolate mothers and degrade our sacred work.

• Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood by Lucy Jones - Our society understands the changes that adolescents go through much more than the visceral initiation into motherhood. This book explores emerging knowledge in the scientific and critiques cultural myths around motherhood, arguing that this sacred transformation deserves its own word - matrescence.

• Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich

• My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter by Aja Monet - This wonderful, almost haunting book proves that poetry is indeed not a luxury. Go read that too.

Biography

• Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement by Tarana Burke - Without Burke, we wouldn’t have #metoo. This is her story, which gave power to so many women’s voices and experiences.

• Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog - This is still on my to-read list, but I can’t wait to find a free moment to dive in.

Learning from Mother Earth

• The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer - The gift economy, fundamental to matriarchal societies, mirrors nature’s ecosystems. This book beautifully teaches us how nature functions and the inspiration we can take for our own societies.

• Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

• Iwigara: The Kinship of Plants and People: American Indian Ethnobotanical Traditions and Science by Enrique Salmón - This is a catalogue of 80 plants and their properties and cultural importance to North American Indigenous peoples.

• Dirt to Soil: One Family's Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture by Gabe Brown - The industrial agricultural model is rooted in the exploitation of the Earth. This book offers a better way.

Liberating the Mind

• Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey

• The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté - his book exposes how deeply our society pathologizes the natural and normalizes the harmful. Though Maté never mentions patriarchy, it’s the system that is at the core of the distortions he describes.

• Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm by Thich Nhat Hanh - Oppressive systems rely on fear to maintain control. In this gentle yet radical book, we are invited to soften, to hold our fear with presence and compassion. When we unravel fear’s grip in our daily lives, the systems that rely on us being afraid lose their power.