Ep. 300: The Matriarchy
The Matriarchy
My mother died on June 11th, five years ago. This is the episode I recorded right after she passed.
I had no idea when I sat down to record it that I was about to say anything useful to anyone. I was grieving. My emotions were coming in waves I couldn't predict. But there was something I had been thinking about since the moment she took her last breath — something about the matriarchy, about power, about what we've been told it means to be a woman who does enough and is enough.
I want to share it with you here.
The matriarchy existed. It was real.
A million and a half years ago, women were revered as priestesses. They were honored for their capacity to bear children, to carry life, to hold community. Think of every story you've heard about goddesses, about the power of women's circles, about Wonder Woman and her island. That's not fantasy. It's a cultural memory of something that was real.
Then came the patriarchy — which, according to historian Gerda Lerner, arose partly from the practice of intertribal exchanges of women for marriage. Women acquiesced because it was functional for the tribe. And the patriarchy has been baked in ever since — 4,000 years and counting. But I believe it's being dismantled. Slowly, imperfectly, but it's moving.
The hypermasculine drive — and where it got me
I spent most of my adult life running. Running from my mother's depression, from her financial dependence, from the image of a woman who had given everything and ended up with so little to show for it in conventional terms. She was my cautionary tale, and I hated myself a little for seeing her that way.
I paid off $45,000 of debt working two jobs. I sold my house, my car, my dresses. I lived in someone's basement. I worked in high-intensity tech sales, launched businesses, helped hundreds of people find their voices. During the pandemic alone I launched a blog, a second podcast, rebuilt my website, opened an audio agency, started a new job, and cared for my mother through her diagnosis.
And I never once felt like it was enough.
That is what hypermasculine drive does. It produces. It performs. It checks every box and still feels hollow at the finish line. I knew how to do that kind of work in my sleep. I had no idea how to receive love.
Her last six months
When my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, we expected her to go quickly. Her health had been fragile for years. But something happened.
All six of her kids rallied. She moved in with my sister. We took turns flying and driving in from across the country. I took six weeks of family medical leave. And what I watched over those months was the most unexpected thing: my mother became the happiest I had ever seen her.
She stopped watching the news. She picked up a tapestry and taught her granddaughter to sew. She read books to my kids. She shared meals with the family around her. Her lifelong friends called and came to visit. We took her to Asheville — wheelchair, oxygen tank, pouring rain, heavy pain — and she talked about that trip every single day afterward.
She was surrounded by love and she let it in. And it was more than enough.
The room where she died
When it was her time, all five of us who could be there gathered around her bed. Classical music played. We told stories, cracked jokes, told her how much we loved her, told her it was okay to go. My sister in California was on speakerphone. All six of us were there
The room was peaceful. Calm. Her eyes were closed. She would squeeze a hand here and there. And what I felt in that room — what we all felt — was something I don't have a better word for than love. Pure, feminine, unhurried love. It wasn't scary. It felt like it was going to be okay.
Because it was.
What the matriarchy is asking of us
As I've sat with my grief, I keep coming back to this: maybe the answer is more feminine than "hug the people you love." Maybe the invitation is to receive love. To let yourself be enough, right now, with nothing left to prove. No accomplishments to justify your worthiness. No performance to queue up first.
My mother gave us six lives. Twelve grandchildren. Decades of unconditional love, ferocious protection, and a presence that showed up for every wedding, every birth, every hurt, every win. She sacrificed much of herself so we could shine.
And in her last months, she finally let us shine on her.
That is the matriarchy. Not domination in reverse. Just love, circulating. Just worthiness that doesn't need to be earned.
I am worthy. You are worthy. We are worthy. Together.
Episode 300 of Culture Changers.
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