Patriarchy has produced the patriacene: can gender challenge its persistence?

Abstract

This chapter reviews the evolution of the Patriacene, over the past 6000 years. The ‘system of rule’ changed from maternal clans to fratrilineal kinships, god-kings, pater familias, colonisation, capitalism, and multinational corporations. Patriarchy is based on violence, wars, and exploitation of humans and nature. Facing these imperialist powers, people in the Global South are helpless to limit the extraction and mistreatments. Thus, women experimented radical alternatives with gift economy, the Aymara’s Cosmovision of ‘living well’ and the Zapatista’s ‘leading by obeying’. They reversed violent accumulation by understanding that ‘there is no better life’, promoting subsistence production, inclusive education, traditional health care, and diverse productive activities. Their bottom-up cultural options against the Patriacene are improving well-being, social care, local cohesion, sorority, and ecosystem restoration.