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Women led cultures of the past Women led cultures are referred to as matriarchies: By standard definition, a matriarchy is a 'family, group or state governed by a matriarch (a [...], Authors note: This paper discusses male and female physical identity as a polarity. The author would like to recognize that gender occurs on a spectrum with individual functioning falling in areas that cannot be defined in terms of purely male or female. The author also wishes to make known her own disbelief in gender roles, acknowledging the trauma inherent in providing an established expectation of role based on any form of exterior physical attributes. Women have held the reins of leadership throughout most of antiquity. Women-led cultures were peaceful, communal and valued men as equals. The replacement of the Goddesses with the singular male God; the misinterpretation of archeology and the misrepresented role of the feminine through modern male-dominated sciences has skewed what has been delivered as human history. Industrialization and supporting the goals aligned with male control might just be the downfall of the modern world. Left-brain dominance in doing, linear thinking, ownership, power, and if-then logic versus right-brain being, all-at-once processing, community, sharing, and authentic knowing become the shadows perpetuating struggle between the male/female structures both inside the psyche and out. Humanistic and existential practices reflect a feminine model of presence, spoken language, intimacy-in-relationship and promote egalitarian values reflective of matriarchal societies of the past. Models of human development that hold sacred the entire lifespan, as well as, examples for attaining a natural acceptance between genders, ethnicities and nations can be attained through transpersonal and existential practice. This paper explores a matriarchal development strategy to counter the subjugative role of patriarchy and proposes that the root of human suffering stems from the loss of the divine feminine in modern humans.

In this essay, the author, raised a secular Jew who is returning to Judaism, rereads the biblical story of the matriarch Rebekah and finds in her story a new hermeneutics of the meaning of Judaism as struggle. Rather than associate Jacob, Rebekah's younger son, with 'struggle' (the meaning of the name Israel he is given by the angel), she urges consideration of Rebekah to be the inspiration for what it means to be Jewish, to wrestle with others and with G-d., I was raised by secular Jews, Shoah survivors, who arrived in Toronto as refugees from Poland in 1968. This may appear to be an unusual departure point from which to [...]

The results of a simple economic experiment conducted in three different Indian societies where one is patriarchal while the others are matriarchal reveal that public good provisions is higher in matrilineal societies and that this higher level of provision is due to male differences in contributing to public good.

This article presents the results of a study that investigated the level of assets and debts that female-headed households have in comparison to those of married-couple households and other types of households. The empirical results revealed that the amounts of net worth of married-couple households and male-headed households were significantly larger than that of female-headed households. We discuss policy implications stemming from the findings of the study and recommend that the United States seriously consider creative policy approaches aimed at empowering low-income households such as employment-related supportive policies, microenterprise programs, and Individual Development Accounts programs. Key Words: elasticity, female-headed households, family policy, income, net worth.

Khmer society has never been structured matrilineally, despite what some scholars have maintained. Classifying the society as such has been the results of particular academic paradigms. It is impossible to know for sure what Khmer society was like in ancient times but contemporary Khmer society is definitely not matrilineal. Khmer culture has no characteristics commonly associated with matrilineality. Separating the concepts of matriarchy and matrilineality helps with arrive at the correct interpretation. Women have certain rights such as the ability to inherit property but do not have political power.

Galicia, the northwesternmost region of Spain, is often popularly characterized within that nation as matriarchal. This concept of female power has also been elaborated and drawn upon by Galician regionalists in their construction of a distinctive regional identity. This article examines the ways in which a myth of matriarchy and symbols of womanhood have been used in Galician ethnogenesis. It explores both the aptness of feminine symbols for expressing the paradoxical nature of the relationship of region to nation and the ironies evoked by the use of the hegemonically devalued symbol of woman to stand for the region.

Over the last 30 years in Ghana, the proportion of households headed by women has increased and the composition of these households has shifted, with a growing percentage of households headed by the divorced and widowed. The paper assesses the implications of these trends for family welfare, and evaluates more broadly the current role of women in the economic maintenance of households with children, using data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey. The consumption levels of household members are highest in households in which women play a primary role in the provision of cash earnings either in partnership with their husbands, or as the primary cash providers. In all types of household, women work, on average, longer hours than men, but the differences between the sexes are greatest when men and women co-reside, and least when they do not. Access to resources from an economically committed male is found to be important to the welfare of female-headed households, which made up roughly 30 per cent of all households in Ghana in 1987/88. Because the majority of households in Ghana are maintained by the economic contribution of more than one member, headship often presents a misleading picture of the overall division of economic responsibilities within households., Data on households headed by women were analyzed from the Ghana Living Standards Survey. Analysis showed that about 30% of households were headed by females with a high-dependency ratio. The consumption levels were highest in households wherein women control the cash earnings alone or in partnership with their husbands. Women were also found to work longer hours than men, the difference being most significant when men and women co-reside and least significant when they do not.

Using a sample of the largest 100 cities, multivariate analysis of black, single female-headed families tests hypotheses derived from competing political paradigmatic explanations of marital disruption. Results show sex-ratio, black male and female employment, and access to AFDC predict the likelihood of black, single female-headed family formation. The conclusion explores public policy implications.

The chances of a matriarchal society following the increase in the number of women who will graduate with bachelor's degrees by 2017 are discussed.

Study is conducted whether material functioning mediated the relationship between domestic violence (DV) and infant externalizing behavior. Results suggest the need for early intervention efforts for families living with DV.