The Matriarchy Strikes

Delacroix, "Liberty Leading the People" 

Protests are happening now in many places. The golden thread that connects us with our governments has broken. The social contract has broken. Not just in one or two countries, but in many, most, maybe all. All hell is about to break loose.

In many places, these protests seem to be led by women. In Iran, the focus of the protests is the demand to wear the hijab, which only affects women; and it is the death of a young woman in police custody. In Dagestan, and elsewhere in the Russian federation, it is mostly women protesting in the streets. There is a practical reason for this: young men protesting will be hauled off to the front lines in Ukraine. Young men are keeping out of sight. In the US, suburban moms are showing up in droves at school board meetings, alarmed at what their children are being taught. If this group swings decisively away from the Democrats, they are doomed.

In Italy, a woman has just won election as prime minister. She leads a party supposedly further to the right than any previous postwar government; a protest movement. In Canada, a woman, Tamara Lich, organized and led the Freedom Convoy in February. A woman towards the right of that party is now running the UK Conservatives.

The women in particular are rebelling. What does it mean?

In the normal course of things, women prefer security to freedom. They want peace and order. This means they are the natural allies of government and continuity. When women rebel, it is especially significant. And the men naturally defer to them.

You might protest that feminism is a radical movement, hardly in favour of the established order, and we have been living with that for ages. But feminism was never radical, never against government and never against the established order. Feminists were never wild in the streets. Instead, feminism has always demanded bigger government and more social control. It was, moreover, always a movement of the upper and middle classes; bored suburban housewives. Those already in control. And it was, from the start, enthusiastically endorsed and supported by government and the establishment. Nobody ever fired at a feminist in the street. Nobody ever even prosecuted one—at least until Johnny Depp.

It therefore says a great deal when women are genuinely out in the streets, and protesting government and the established social order. Women are the glue that holds society together. They are the natural supports of government. If they are in opposition, society as a whole has turned. Women always get to decide.

I have said before that the crisis point in any revolution is when the military is called out to disperse the crowd, and they refuse. Then government has lost control.

But there is an earlier and almost as important crisis point: when that crowd is largely women.

The army, being male, is particularly unlikely to fire on women. They are likely to join with them instead. Women rule. If the soldiers do fire on women, all hell breaks loose. If men die, even a lot of men, nobody much cares. If women die, it is intolerable to most people, men and women. Now the population will be impossible to control.

So once the crowd is mostly women, the government is doomed.

The Russian Revolution in 1917 happened when the women rioted for bread. The Imperial troops would not fire on them; the Czar fell.

In the EDSA revolution in the Philippines, in 1986, the crucial moment came when the marines were sent in tanks to break up the crowd. A line of nuns knelt in their way. They halted. The army and air force began to defect en masse.

In Argentina in 1980, the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” pulled down the military junta. They could not be dispersed.

Examples could be multiplied.

When the women are in the streets, the regime is likely to fall. It has lost any regime’s essential support.

We are seeing that happen now.