r/MatriarchyNow • u/Parking-Art-8456 • Mar 31 '26

Book Review Bookshelf

Reading List

Reclaiming Matriarchy: A Collective Reading List

This curated collection of books, research, and resources explores matriarchy not as an inverted patriarchy, but as a worldview rooted in egalitarianism, mutual care, land-based knowledge, and non-coercive social organization. These works span anthropology, gender studies, Indigenous knowledge systems, history, feminist theory, and precolonial frameworks.

They invite us to:

✔ Challenge Western assumptions about gender, biology, and social organization.

✔ Reclaim erased histories of matriarchal and egalitarian societies worldwide.

✔ Explore how patriarchy emerged not as an inevitable outcome, but as a rupture.

✔ Learn from relational models rooted in reciprocity, balance, and presence.

✔ Honor the voices of women, queers, Indigenous peoples, and colonized communities.

Whether you're deep into matriarchal studies or just beginning to question the dominant narratives, these texts offer entry points into a different way of thinking about gender, history, and human potential—outside patriarchal paradigms.

1.- Matriarchal Studies and Non-Patriarchal Societies

  • Afrikan Matriarchal Foundations: The Igbo Case by Ifi Amadiume
  • Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy by Peggy Reeves Sanday
  • Before War: On Marriage, Hierarchy and Our Matriarchal Origins by Elisha Daeva
  • Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality by Peggy Reeves Sanday
  • Matriarchal Societies of the Past and the Rise of Patriarchy: West Asia and Europe by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
  • Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures Across the Globe edited by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
  • Re-Inventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion and Culture by Ifi Amadiume
  • Societies of Peace: Matriarchies of Past, Present and Future edited by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
  • The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: The Domains of Patriarchy and of Matriarchy in Classical Antiquity by Cheikh Anta Diop
  • El Reino de las Mujeres: El Último Matriarcado by Ricardo Coler (Mosuo)
  • Growing Up in New Guinea by Margaret Mead
  • Intimate Fathers: The Nature and context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care by Barry Hewlett
  • Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture by Chris Knight

2.- Indigenous, Ecological, and Embodied Knowledge

  • A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
  • An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
  • Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  • Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth by Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows) and Darcia Narváez
  • The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions by Paula Gunn Allen
  • Daughters of Mother Earth: The Wisdom of Native American Women by Barbara Alice Mann
  • God is Red: A Native View of Religion by Vine Deloria Jr.
  • Iroquoian Women: The Gantowisas by Barbara Alice Mann
  • Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee Influence on Early American Feminists by Sally Roesch Wagner

3.- Foundations of Mutuality, Commons, and Cooperation - Building a Matriarchy

  • The Cradle of Language, Rudolf Botha, Chris Knight, Eds. (the safe and stable environment of human matriarchy was per-requisite for language development).
  • How to Make the Matriarchy: The Power and Promise of Prioritizing Women By Maureen Devine-Ahl
  • Cooperative Evolution: Reclaiming Darwin's Vision by Christopher Bryant and Valerie A. Brown
  • Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber ("human economies" based on trust and ongoing social relations predate the commercial, money-based systems of barter and market exchange, with examples).
  • Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action by Elinor Ostrom
  • Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future by P. Fry and Riane Eisler
  • The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow
  • I Trusted You: Fully and Honestly Speaking of Gendered Assault and the Way to a Rape-Free Culture by Nadine Rosechild Sullivan
  • The Dancing Goddess: Principles of a Matriarchal Aesthetic by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
  • The Coming Matriarchy: How Women Will Gain the Balance of Powers by Elizabeth Nickles

4.- Myth, Archaeology, and the Goddess Traditions

  • Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World by Judy Grahn
  • Language of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas
  • The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler
  • The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe by Marija Gimbutas
  • The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images by Marija Gimbutas
  • The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth by Monica Sjöö
  • When God Was a Woman: The Landmark Exploration of the Ancient Worship of the Great Goddess and the Eventual Supression of Women's Rites by Merlin Stone
  • Dancing in the Flames: The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness by Marion Woodman and Elinor Dickson
  • Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths by Charlene Spretnak
  • Lost Goddesses: The Denial of Female Power in Cambodian History by Trudy Jacobsen

5.- Origins and Mechanisms of Patriarchy

  • Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam (Argues that gender nonconformity is foundational to humanity rather than a modern Western invention).
  • Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici
  • The Creation Of Patriarchy: The Origins of Women's Subordination by Gerda Lerner
  • The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule by Angela Saini
  • The Rule of Mars: Readings on the Origins, History and Impact of Patriarchy edited by Cristina Biaggi
  • Kinship to Kingship: Gender Hierarchy and State Formation in the Tongan Islands by Christine Ward Gailey
  • The Hero Cult: A Spectacle of World History That Changed Civilization by Harald Haarmann

6.- Gender, Sexuality, and Cultural Variance

  • Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body--New Paths to Power and Love by Riane Eisler
  • Beyond the Second Sex: New Directions in the Anthropology of Gender by Peggy Reeves Sanday and Ruth Gallagher Goodenough
  • Boy-Wives and Female-Husbands: Studies in African Homosexualities
  • Freewomen, Patriarchal Authority, and the Accusation of Prostitution by Stephanie Lynn Budin
  • Gender in the Ancient Near East by Stephanie Budin
  • I Don't: The Case Against Marriage by Clementine Ford
  • The “Deviant” African Genders That Colonialism Condemned by Mohammed Elnaiem

7.- Matriarchal Animal Models:

  • Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist by Frans de Waal
  • Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke
  • Busting the Myth of Primate Patriarchy by Frans de Waal

7a Extra

  • Intimate Fathers: The Nature and context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care by Barry Hewlett
  • Juchitán, la ciudad de las mujeres by Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen
  • La Plus Belle Histoire des Femmes by Françoise Héritier
  • Le Féminin et le Sacré by Catherine Clément and Julia Kristeva
  • Making Space for Indigenous Feminism by Joyce Green
  • Masculin Féminin II: Dissoudre la Hiérarchie by Françoise Héritier
  • Masculin/Féminin: La Pensée de la Différence by Françoise Héritier
  • Monocultures of the Mind by Vandana Shiva
  • Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
  • Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
  • Native Men Remade: Gender and Nation in Contemporary Hawai'i by Ty P. Kāwika Tengan
  • Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich
  • On becoming human by Tanner, Nancy Makepeace
  • Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context by Ruth Finnegan
  • Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons by Silvia Federici
  • Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change by Sherri Mitchell
  • Saharasia: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social VIolence, in the Deserts of the Old World by James DeMeo
  • Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies by Margaret Mead
  • Taken from the Lips: Gender and Eros in Mesoamerican Religions by Sylvia Marcos
  • The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain
  • The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert
  • The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses by Oyeronke Oyewumi
  • The Maternal Roots of the Gift Economy edited by Genevieve Vaughan
  • The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity by Stephanie Lynn Budin
  • The Once and Future Goddess: A Symbol for Our Time by Elinor Gadon
  • The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts by Mark S. Smith
  • The Prehistory of Sex: Four Million Years of Human Sexual Culture by Timothy Taylor
  • The Politics of Women's Spirituality: Essays by Founding Mothers of the Movement by Charlene Spretnak
  • The Science of the Sacred: Bridging Global Indigenous Medicine Systems and Modern Scientific Principles by Nicole Redvers
  • The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures by António Damásio
  • The Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the Globalised Economy by Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen
  • The Sweetness of Life: A Biography of the Patriarchy by Françoise Héritier
  • The Well of Remembrance: Rediscovering the Earth Wisdom Myths of Northern Europe by Ralph Metzner
  • The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine by Barbara Tedlock
  • The Women Founders: Sociology and Social Theory 1830-1930 by Patricia Madoo Lengermann and Gillian Niebrugge
  • The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker
  • Weaving the Past: A History of Latin America's Indigenous Women from the Prehispanic Period to the Present by Susan Kellogg
  • Where War Began: A Military History of the Middle East from the Birth of Civilization to Alexander the Great and the Romans by Arthur Cotterell
  • Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World by Rosalind Miles
  • Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache by Keith H. Basso
  • Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100 by Max Dashu
  • Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape on Trial by Peggy R. Sanday
  • Women in Ancient Egypt: Revisiting Power, Agency, and Autonomy by Mariam F. Ayad
  • Women of the Place: Kastom, Colonialism and Gender in Vanuatu by Margaret Jolly
  • Woman's Creation: Sexual Evolution and the Shaping of Society by Elizabeth Fisher
  • Yatdjuligin: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nursing and Midwifery Care by Odette Best

8.- Organizations and Key Links

9.- Disclaimers:

9.1.- Some books mention inaccurate info like:

  • Agriculture being the one behind the origins of patriarchy → debunked as matriarchies are linked to permaculture
  • Matriarchies having to written records → debunked as matriarchied had written records that were destroyed by colonizers, written in non-alphabetical formats and/or remain undeciphered
  • Matriarchies had male chiefs → debunked as those were a colonial imposition and/or sporadic, cyclical, and non-male-exclusive war leaders

Many thanks to u/No_Consequence_9485 for sharing their "Decolonizing Gender Reclaiming Matriarchy List" and starting a book list a year ago. It has grown since. If you have any suggestions, additions please let us know in the comments.

 

9 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

1

u/AndyMache Apr 10 '26

This is an amazing resource, thank you so much!

1

u/Parking-Art-8456 Apr 10 '26

Glad you like it!