Alexa, define "young matriarch"
Find your own inner matriarch.
The title of this letter is a lil reminder for you to cancel your Amazon Prime membership. Oligarchs don’t deserve your money.
New readers: Please begin with Matriarchy FAQs before continuing. This foundation will enrich your understanding of the essays that follow.
When someone says “matriarch,” we usually think of an older woman or a queen. I am neither of these things, but I call myself a young matriarch because I am in the process of learning to be the first true matriarch in my recent maternal lineage.
Even though I am a mother, I don’t think this is the only way to become a matriarch. Motherhood has given me the visceral and physical experience of creating and mothering another human being, but this is only one way of embodying matriarchy. In my mind, anyone can be a matriarch—it is gender neutral—as long as they commit to embodying matriarchal values in their lives.
Matriarchal values are the polar opposite of patriarchal values. I define patriarchy as a system that goes beyond men controlling women. It’s a complex social structure grounded in patriarchal values, and anyone can enforce these values regardless of their gender. Patriarchal values operate according to the assumption that hierarchy is natural. Under this belief system, human relationships - which should be reciprocal and mutually fulfilling - become minefields of domination and power struggles.
Like so many of us, I was raised in a family that normalized and perpetuated patriarchal values. In my family, love and affection were given only when I complied or met their expectations for being a “good daughter”. My boundaries and autonomy as the youngest woman were never truly respected, and I was expected to endure all this quietly without complaint.
This upbringing created ripples throughout my adult life. For as long as I can remember, I have always allowed myself to be treated however by whomever because I didn’t feel I deserved better. This is how many women are socialized to behave under patriarchy. The expectation is that you exist to gain the approval of others, usually at the expense of yourself. We have been severed from the respect and reverence our ancestors received and instead expected to submit to patriarchal control.
These are patriarchal values playing out IRL. I created this graphic to help visualize the values of patriarchy and matriarchy:
Looking at these values side by side, it is clear how deeply patriarchal values shape our daily lives - from the ways we relate to each other to the way we treat nature - and how far we have to go.
In patriarchal relationships, the prioritization of domination over love creates constant power struggles that drain one party disproportionately, leaving them depleted. In patriarchal families, there is usually one person who has the most power, and their moods and wants are catered to at the expense of the community.
This all stems from patriarchal values, which cannot be enforced without the story that hierarchy is natural. Organizing human beings this way is inherently fragile—it only works if every member of the unit agrees to believe and play along with the story. If one person rejects the story and steps out, the whole system begins to crumble.
My self-defined identity as a young matriarch has disrupted the family power structure, not because I attacked the structure directly, but because I rejected the stories I was told. I rejected the idea that I was born to serve and please others at my own expense. I rejected the lie that I must earn my worth. I rejected the myth that control equals care. This is how all power structures weaken - when we find the strength to refuse to comply.
I had recognized the unhealthy patterns in my family and sought therapy a few years ago, but it was the birth of my daughter that put my learnings into practice. I now had another human who was completely dependent on me to shape her experience on Earth. I had a responsibility to protect her.
I knew that whatever harmful pattern I accepted, I would pass on to her. Through motherhood, I found a fundamental strength that was so unlike the strength modelled by our manhood-obsessed culture. It took all the strength I had to resist my internal conditioning and my family’s pushback to my defiance. My daughter illuminated the strength I had in me all along. This was the power of matriarchy, in action. I hugged the old me and let her die. From the destruction arose a young matriarch in the making.
For matriarchy to happen on a societal level, we need enough of us to reject the stories and myths of patriarchy and embrace our roles as young matriarchs.
A young matriarch has stepped into their power but is still in the process of becoming. They are choosing to embody matriarchal values of love, regeneration, reciprocity, and community while still carrying the wounds of patriarchy.
A young matriarch reclaims their inherent wisdom, power, and worth, rejecting the patriarchal idea that these things must be earned.
A young matriarch honors their position as a future ancestor to break the harmful cycles of patriarchy for the benefit of future generations.
The more we embody matriarchal values in our lives, the more we evolve into the matriarchs our society needs. A matriarchy is only as strong as its matriarchs—the embodiments of matriarchal wisdom practiced for a lifetime.
Matriarchs protect and transmit the wisdom of care and reciprocity. They nurture not just children and younger generations, but entire communities, ecosystems, and ways of being that prioritize life.
For most of the patriarchy’s existence, there has been a deliberate erasure of respect and reverence for true matriarchs. Instead, patriarchy respects and reveres whoever holds the most oppressive power, whoever is at the top of the hierarchy. But real leadership is not about domination. It is about sustaining and nourishing life, something patriarchy has never valued.
When enough of us reject patriarchal values in our daily lives, we become living embodiments that another way is possible. This is how societal change happens: through everyday people choosing different ways of relating to power, to each other, to the Earth.
Thought of as a practice, matriarchy becomes a way of being that we cultivate in our daily lives. I will develop these ideas in later letters, but I believe becoming a matriarch means:
Recognizing care, empathy, and reciprocity as forms of legitimate power and strength.
Reclaiming our autonomy through economic self-sufficiency, land stewardship and interdependence with those who truly love us.
Protecting and transmitting wisdom about matriarchal principles and ways of being.
Building new structures and tangible alternatives to patriarchal systems.
We can each take part in this process, and each person will have different strengths that allow them to participate in different ways. Some of us will teach children to honor their intuition and boundaries. Others will create art and stories that celebrate matriarchal wisdom. Some will start community gardens that feed their neighbors and bring people together. Others will organize mutual aid networks that reduce our dependence on patriarchal governance and economies. There are countless ways to embody matriarchal values - as many ways as there are people ready to embrace them.
When we step into this role, we don't just heal our own wounds - we become the ancestors we needed when we began our own journeys. I hope today’s letter helps you discover the matriarch within you - they are ready to be reclaimed.