Julius Evola was deeply interested in the question of the coming of a
gynaecocratic society in the West. The term `gynaecocracy' was coined
in the 19th century by J.J. Bachofen in his study of matriarchy in the
ancient world and of the typology of cultures, `Mother Right'. It
comes from `gyne' and `krateia,' that is to say, a government ruled by
women and feminine principles. According to Bachofen, cultures can be
divided into two types: on the one hand, the `chtonic', lunar and
feminine type, and on the other hand, the `Olympian', solar and virile
one. In the former type, the law of the earth is held supreme. It is
the law of generation and fertility. The mother, whose symbols are the
earth and the moon, is seen as the ultimate deity, source of life.
Life generates from Mother Earth and dissolves in it. The belief in
the ultimate dissolution of all beings into the earth shows that
passivity and inaction are the dominant characteristics of this
worldview. Moreover, all beings, subjected to this law, are as seen as
offspring of Mother Earth, and are thus held to be equal. It follows
that inequality and hierarchy are seen as an `injustice', an outrage
to this passive law of nature. It is from this very myth that stems
the idea of egalitarianism and of the `social contract'. Bachofen
noted that these beliefs were common in the pre-Aryan world around the
Mediterranean. Scholars of the ancient world today unanimously agree
that the worship of fertility goddesses was prevalent in that area. In
contrast to matriarchy is the `Olympian' and virile principle. Its
essential qualities are power and combativeness. Its eternal symbol is
the sun, the sol invictus of the Aryans. Evola filtered these ideas
from their evolutionism and compared them to the traditional
doctrines. In his critical analysis of the modern world, he could only
affirm that gynaecocracy is as much prevalent today as it was in the
pre-Aryan world.
Since Evola made those considerations, the situation in the West has
only deteriorated, thus only too well confirming his point that we are
living in a gynaecocratic society. To such an extent, that in the
recent years there has been a growing – yet still partial – awareness
of this condition among isolated individuals. Until, in 2001, two
McGill scholars, Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young, published a
first volume in a trilogy (*) which wants itself an academic analysis
of what has become too obvious. Its title speaks for itself:
`Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular
Culture.' The reader who is looking for examples of how misandry and
gynocentrism manifest in popular culture today will find in this book
an excellent source of information. Our review of it will focus on
elements which though have been made with regards of popular culture,
are valid for the whole of culture today, of which in any case, as the
authors indicate, the former is merely a reflection.
The theme of the book is contained in a quotation by David Thomas
presented at the outset: "Western society is obsessed with women to
the point of mass neurosis…." Indeed, this is what the authors set
themselves to prove. The problem is thus outlined: "The worldview of
our society has become increasingly gynocentric (focused on the needs
and problems of women) and misandric (focused on the evils and
inadequacies of men)". It is rather interesting that the authors, who
show no indication that they are familiar with the works of Julius
Evola and J.J. Bachofen, should decide to use a term strikingly
similar to, more powerful than `gynaecocracy'. Whereas the latter
points to a society governed by women, `gynocentrism' literally means
a system that revolves around women. It is clear that we are dealing
here with an anomaly, or, indeed, "a mass neurosis."
The very fact that a book that deals with such a topic should be
published in academia is extremely significant on many levels. It
indicates, first and foremost, for those who could not see it, that
the fact that we are living in a gynaecocracy is not fiction. However,
as we shall show, not only are we living in a gynaecocracy, but in an
extremely developed stage of gynaecocracy – that which the authors
call gynocentrism. They, on the other hand, see gynocentrism as a
recent and spontaneous phenomenon. We cannot blame them for this. That
academics are able to touch upon such an issue is already something
that until now was thought of as impossible. To use an example: that
academics are able to begin to see the problem at hand is like a
person who, after having had cancer in his organism unnoticed for a
long time, is finally able to see its grossest and most external
manifestations – but only too late. When the authors place the coming
of a gynaecocratic society at a very recent period of Western history,
they admit that they can only see the tip of the iceberg. It is thus
ironic when they write that the misandry that accompanies gynocentrism
"has become so deeply embedded in our culture that few people –
including men – recognize it." They make no exception to this.
Before we proceed, we should pause for a moment to comment on an
analogy that the authors make at the outset between Jews and men. This
is what they write: "In our time surprising though it might sound,
belief in the full humanity of `men' has been dangerously undermined
by stereotypes and based on ignorance and prejudice, just as that of
Jews was." They even feel the need to add that such an analogy is
legitimate. Notwithstanding the fact that we fail to see how the
authors can make a claim in regards with the Jews that would require a
book in itself, and furthermore decide to open their book with it, we
cannot fail to see the sheer opportunism underlying such an analogy.
The historical opinion of the Jews in Europe is too complex to be
simply brushed off as being based on "ignorance and prejudice."
However, coupled with a handful of derisive remarks in regards with
"the Nazis" spread throughout the book, this "surprising" analogy
guarantees the authors a boarding pass on the `safe list,' so to
speak. Enough said.
Young and Nathanson posit that the worldview of our society was
androcentric (centered around men) until recently: "By the 1990s,
androcentrism was increasingly being replaced by gynocentricism." This
is a gross confusion. As we shall later see, among many things, the
authors speak of the coming of a new matriarchy and argue that men
today have been made into a "metaphysical source of evil." They
outline the primary message of gynocentrism: "There is nothing about
men as such that is good or even acceptable. Therefore, men should be
tolerated only to the extent that they can either become women
(through physical castration) of be like women (through intellectual
or spiritual castration). In short, the only good man is either a
corpse or a woman. After annihilating, or "deconstructing" everything
distinctive to men, whether physical or otherwise, what is left? Only
whatever affirms women and honorary women. There is no room in this
universe for men per se." This is a very accurate and objective
description of the situation today. However, precisely because of
that, we find that placing the coming of a gynaecocracy at such a late
period in time most improbable and illogical. How is it possible that
a culture thousands of years old shifts from being centered around men
– as the authors claim it was before the 1990s – to being a generator
of hatred of men and gynocentric, almost overnight? To say that this
is impossible is only common sense. Indeed, gynaecocracy has been
prevalent in the West for a long time. That the hatred of men is now
tolerated is not the beginning of gynaecocracy, but only indicates
that gynaecocracy has reached a very high stage. Likewise, the
so-called emancipation of women in the West does not start with
feminism – feminism is a later manifestation of the emancipatory
process – but instead with deeming more important and placing the
natural and materialistic aspects of the individual and of society
over the concern with spiritual matters, which the figures of the
ascetic and of the virile warrior represented traditionally. When
these figures start losing importance in society: this is where the
coming of gynaecocracy must be placed. The prevalence of economical
and materialistic matters in the modern world compared to the
immutable primacy of the spirit in Roman civilisation and the European
Middle-Ages is a very contrasting example of that shift. This is in
accordance with the traditional doctrines of the castes and of the
ages of mankind. It is thus not a coincidence that the Hindu `Kali
Yuga' – the final and darkest age of the human cycle – with which our
epoch coincides – or, more accurately, which it represents – is
characterised by the awakening of a goddess, Kali, who was dormant in
the previous ages. (It is also not a coincidence that many have
grossly seen in Kali a "feminist goddess.") This age is also
characterised by the fall of power from the priestly and warrior
castes – traditional representatives of the spiritual order – to the
castes of the merchants and of the slaves, traditionally at the bottom
of the hierarchy, but which our society has elevated to a pedestal.
Evola writes: "When all interest in [the spiritual order] is
destroyed, and practical and utilitarian purposes, economic
achievements, and the rest of the interests of the two inferior castes
are focused on, man disintegrates, moves off-centre, and opens himself
up to stronger forces which drag him from himself and return him to
the irrational and pre-personal energies of collective life, above
which any truly superior culture would have endeavoured to raise
itself." Without wanting to delve too long on these considerations, we
see that the coming of gynaecocracy, of the dominance of the female,
is intrinsically linked, historically and ethico-culturally, to the
dissolution of spiritual principles in the higher sense: in the
religious order, by promulgating instead a spirituality characteristic
of the lowest castes, and in the social order, by replacing the
traditional hierarchy of virile and superior individuality with a
collective system of egalitarianism which binds only a spurious
`social contract', typical of the pre-Aryan matriarchies that
worshiped female divinities of fertility and of the earth. All this is
far from being a coincidence, and it is to a far older period than the
one assumed by Nathanson and Young that one must trace gynaecocracy.
(It is unfortunate that one of the authors, Katherine K. Young, failed
to make those analogies with traditional doctrines, even though she is
a professor in Hinduism at university).
It is thus significant that the authors were able to identify the
elements which we classified as symptomatic of a high stage of
gynaecocracy, but which they saw instead as the source of
gynaecocracy. According to them, the gynocentric society and misandry
of today were brought about by "ideological feminism," which, in turn,
"is a marriage of the two major intellectual traditions of Western
culture over the past two hundred years: the Enlightenment, here
represented by Marxism, and romanticism, represented by nationalism."
For feminists, "gender has precisely the `function' in feminism as
class has in Marxism. In short, the names have been changed but not
the ideology." Moreover, "feminists have relied on collectivism, often
in the form of `collectives,'" and "some [of them] have supported and
contributed to a trend in jurisprudence called communitarianism, which
emphasizes `group' rights over individual ones." This only confirms
what we have said above concerning the nature of gynaecocracy.
However, Marxism and romanticism are not to be seen as the roots of
gynaecocracy, but themselves as symptoms of a high stage of
gynaecocracy. As Evola writes: "With the advent of democracy, with the
proclamation of the `immortal principles' and the `rights of man and
citizen' and the subsequent developments of these `conquests' in
Europe into Marxism and communism, it is exactly the `natural right',
the levelling and anti-aristocratic law of the Mother, that the West
has dug up, renouncing any `solar' virile Aryan value and confirming,
with the omnipotence so often granted to the collectivist element, the
ancient irrelevant of the individual to the `telluric' view." As for
romanticism, he writes: "We have here the same love for the formless,
the confused the unlimited, the same promiscuity between sensation and
spirit, the same antagonism towards the virile and Apollonian ideal of
clarity, form and limit." Evola goes even further, affirming that the
gynaecocracy in our society is reflected in "culture based on a pale
and empty intellectualism, sterile culture separated from life, only
amounting to criticism, abstract creativity and vain mannered
`creativity': culture that has taken material refinement to the
extreme and in which woman and sensuality often become predominant
motifs almost to a pathological and obsessive degree." Nevertheless,
the authors make an interesting remark regarding the nature of
gynaecocracy: "To some extent, collectivism is a mentality that has
disadvantages for women themselves. In the interest of women as
collectivity, the needs or interests of women as individuals may be
sacrificed." Indeed, gynaecocracy functions against women themselves
and thus should not be the equated with womanhood, but instead, with
the result of a society in which women have come to dominate over the
spiritual domain, traditionally the function of the ascetic-warrior
and of the pater familias. We will have the opportunity to come back
to this in the review of the third volume of the trilogy, which deals
specifically with the relation between the sexes. Interestingly, the
authors do not hesitate to describe the utopia hoped for by certain
"ideological feminists" trends, and whose similarity with ancient
gynaecocracies our reader will not fail to recognise: "These women
hope to restore a lost golden age under the aegis of a Great Goddess,
a paradise that was destroyed by evil patriarchal gods and their male
supporters." We needn't repeat the considerations we made over that
point.
We now come to the question of the functioning of gynaecocracy in our
society. First of all, the authors make it clear that while some
"ideological feminists" want "the old order swept away entirely, root
and branch, to be replaced by a new one," most by far "want to change
the meanings attached to institutions or traditions, to substitute a
new social and cultural order without undergoing the trauma of doing
away with the political order. They want to pour new wine, as it were,
into old wineskins." This confirms what we have said concerning the
subversion of hierarchy characteristic of our age. Those who think
that feminism and gynaecocracy should be welcomed because they will
bring a new age of peace only delude themselves: "The fact is that
this new order would be anything but egalitarian. It would merely
substitute some form of matriarchy…for patriarchy." It would be a
world "in which citizens, at least male citizens, are carefully
controlled and duly punished for deviation from the norm prescribed by
ideological feminists." Evola identifies this with a new form of
`Amazonianism': "Thus we see the new masculinised sportswoman, the
garçonne, the woman who devotes herself to the insane development of
her own body, reveals her true mission, becomes emancipated and
independent to the point of being able to choose the men that she
would like to have and use." But how did an ideology that is so
subversive in regards with the traditional order come to prevail in
our culture? How has misandry become so deeply embedded in culture
"that, for all intents and purposes, it is invisible?" The authors
reveal the key formula: "The less said about the revolution…the
greater their chances of success." Indeed, we are dealing here with
some sort of silent revolution – the authors go so far as to term it
"conspiracy" – even the propagators of which are barely aware. We will
come back to this in a moment. The authors identify three main tactics
that "ideological feminists" employ to promote gynocentrism and
misandry: what critics call "political correctness," what academics
call "deconstruction," and what the authors call "fronts." "[Political
correctness] far from fostering genuine courtesy…actually fosters
nothing more than outward signs of respect for those deemed on
political grounds to be worthy of them." This "very convenient way of
silencing potential enemies" has also come to imply "not only smugness
and self-righteousness but hypocrisy as well." The result of
"political correctness" within the context of gynaecocracy is that it
has become "unthinkable for people, especially public figures, to
ridicule or attack women [but] perfectly respectable for women to
ridicule or attack men." Secondly, the authors identify
"deconstruction" as a technique forged by academics to diffuse
"ideological feminism," among other leftist ideologies, in academia.
The authors engage in an intricate criticism of "deconstruction"
theory, which it would be too long to reproduce here. They show that
it is an untenable, rather preposterous theory the primary purpose of
which "is to score political points, not to establish truth." Indeed,
"deconstructionists" should not be accused of stupidity, but rather of
"intellectual dishonesty, deliberately using a dubious theory in order
to undermine their adversaries and thus achieve their own political
goal." That goal, in short, is "reversing rather than eliminating the
hierarchy of values." Thirdly, the authors describe as "front"
"rhetoric that is generally considered respectable and can therefore
be used to conceal ideas and goals that would otherwise be considered
unacceptable." Feminism is far from being "palatable" to all women,
and thus conceals itself in a front. The authors thus note that it was
not entirely by chance that the rise of feminism in North America
coincided with the rise of political rhetoric "that made an ideal
front: "pluralism," "diversity" and "multiculturalism."" However, this
egalitarian and tolerant mask of feminism "is often nothing more than
a convenient, though not always consciously intended, front for a
gynocentric and even misandric ideology." The authors finally mention
"infiltration" as one of the strategies belonging to the promotion of
gynaecocratic and misandric ideology. Writing that "it is a dangerous
word suggesting an organized conspiracy," they claim that they have no
evidence of that, at least not on a massive scale, however, indicating
between parentheses that despite that fact, the like-minded have
always found ways of linking up with each other. However, they do not
fail to mention at least a few examples: professors indoctrinating
young generations, the helping professions counselling their clients
to adopt their ideological perspectives, and so on. Interestingly,
they note that most people "are unaware of the strategies intended to
produce cultural revolution." Ironically, the authors themselves, like
most people, are unable to recognise the main agent of subversion,
which they themselves seem to promote: democracy. What is more
ironical to that is that they recognise all the elements pertaining to
democracy in regards with the coming of gynaecocracy, yet fail to draw
the conclusive link. For instance, they affirm that the final step in
institutionalising gynocentrism and misandry is made by an "elite
culture" which they identify with politicians and Supreme Court
justices, yet at the same posit that the decisions made by these are
based on public opinion. What kind of "elite culture" is one that is
slave to the mass, which itself is slave to itself? Democracy belongs
exclusively to the lowest caste, which today has come to dominate over
every domain of life and by whose rule only gynaecocracy could come
into power. It is thus not a coincidence that Marxism – the main
ideology from which, according to the authors, gynocentrism and
misandry resulted – could only come after democracy had prevailed in
Europe. It is also not a coincidence that America, the front on which
gynaecocracy is the most advanced, is also the forerunner of democracy
in the world. Prior to the coming of gynocentrism, the authors claim,
the worldview of our society was androcentric. That thesis is
preposterous and very narrow to say the least: as we've indicated,
gynocentrism is only an advanced stage of gynaecocracy since unlike
the latter it assumes a system that is completely centered on women.
Moreover, it is highly problematic to claim that the genealogy of
cultures until now has been divided between two anomalies. And that is
the weakest point of this study. Not so surprisingly, the authors seem
to support so-called `original feminism', going so far as to speak of
sorting out "feminist wheat from the chaff" and to write that "the
problem of misogyny has finally been exposed and effectively challenge
[and that] the cultural face of woman, as it were, has been
transformed into a positive way." We recognise this position only too
well: it is not unlike that of those who speak of "true democracy"
compared to the actual corrupted democracy. They are only running
after an illusion. The authors however make an interesting remark:
"Even when it appears in its most blatant forms, in fact, misandry is
often `mistaken for misogyny.'" Ironically, they themselves are not
immune to this formula when they speak of the misogyny that existed
prior to the misandry today. (It is interesting, for instance, to note
that there was no word to designate misogyny prior to the 17th
century, a time by which gynaecocracy was already gaining grounds).
This is not the place to delve too long on this point: the reader who
has followed us carefully until now will know exactly what we mean.
Finally, the authors discuss the reactions of men and women in front
of misandry. Women, it appears, excuse it, trivialise it or even
justify it. Indeed, "underlying all excuses for misandry is the
tenacious belief that men have "all the power."" If men have all the
power, it follows then that they cannot be damaged by the misandry
prevalent in popular culture which is, they continue, "ephemeral and
trivial." The authors note that "ideological feminists," ironically,
would never tolerate that argument in connection with misogyny. On the
other hand, those who try to justify misandry "do not acknowledge it
as a moral problem, but on the contrary see it as a moral and
practical duty." At this point, we should pause to say that the
authors' concern with the `moral righteousness' of gynaecocracy is
completely weak and inessential. At the outset, they claim that "their
ultimate goal is a `moral one'" and that sexual polarisation should be
faced because "reversing it is inherently good (a moral position)."
This attitude is typical of the residues of a bourgeois mentality
which has become obsolete in this day and age. We can only feel
sympathy for the authors if they think that the progress of a
gynaecocracy which they have rightly identified as subversive,
irrational and quasi-demonic, in an amoral sense, can be faced with
petty, hypocritical moralism, evocative at best of a puritanical
bourgeois mentality. To a phenomenon of an almost metaphysical order
must be opposed a front of the same order, which in the present
context we have identified with Aryan virile principles. Since this
is not the occasion to delve on such considerations, we will simply
refer the interested reader to the works of René Guénon (`Orient and
Occident', `Crisis of the Modern World', `Spiritual Authority and
Temporal Power') and of Julius Evola (`Revolt against the Modern
World, `Men among the Ruins') for more on the nature of our present
age and how to face it with an absolute reaction. But how do men today
react to misandry and gynaecocracy? The authors indicate that "many
ordinary men have a vested interest in `not' seeing the pervasive
misandry of everything life." Indeed, to acknowledge being under
attack is to admit vulnerability, which is unacceptable for many men
today "who find it easier to hide behind macho posturing than to admit
being threatened by women (or by other men presumably acting on behalf
of women)." Other men find that acknowledging the problem of rampant
misandry is "too painful." Some simply deny it. "Male feminists," on
the other hand, manage to maintain their self-respect not as members
of a group (men) "but as `individuals at its expense.'" The authors
justly call these people "honorary women." However, most men are
simply too confused to take a position in front of misandry. While
they might be aware that something is wrong, they are not capable to
identify it and to analyse it. Those who are equipped to do so simply
do not dare to say anything in public. "The taboo on male
vulnerability is not only experienced internally…but also enforced
externally. Men who admit to feeling vulnerable are attacked as
cowards, and by no group more effectively than women." The authors
follow along with a precious statement: "The ability to shame men has
always been among the most useful of women's weapons." While inducing
self-misery seems to be the authors' intent, we wonder, in all the
cases of so-called "men" mentioned above, if it wouldn't be more
appropriate to speak of `male lackeys' and `human vegetables' instead.
The authors take the liberty to draw some interesting conclusions:
"Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that misandry can backfire on
women. What if men feel the need to reassert their identity as men?
Ironically, misandry could encourage other men to reassert their
identity as macho aggressors." While not wanting to exclude this
possibility on the long run, we find it improbable that suddenly men
will want to react in face of a situation which, in a sense, they
themselves have been responsible for and which still today they enjoy
safeguarding. As in the case of gynocentrism, if a genuine reaction is
to come, it cannot happen overnight. Traditional cosmology teaches,
after all, that after the Dark Age is a return to the Golden Age.
However, we have seen in the short past what sort of reactions
gynocentrism can entail with the mass murder of women by Marc Lépine
at a Montreal university. While not wanting to praise or condemn such
acts, we may note that they are Janus-faced: on the one hand, they
reinforce gynocentrism by giving it another justification for its
prolongation and by inciting its propagators to close ranks, but on
the other hand, by reinforcing gynocentrism, they are also
accelerating the existence of this worldview which is bound someday to
dissolve, as indeed everything under the banner of the mother-earth
principle lacking a centre and a transcendent direction. It thus
remains to be seen whether the present situation is better fought
directly, in a veritable reaction from above, or indirectly, by
leaving the social realm to itself.
(*) The second and third volumes, the latter which as yet hasn't been
published, are titled, respectively: `Legalizing Misandry: From Public
Shame to Systemic Discrimination against Men' and `Transcending
Misandry: From Feminist Ideology to Intersexual Dialogue.'