Riane Tennenhaus Eisler (born July 22, 1931) is an Austrian-born American systems scientist, futurist, attorney, and author who writes about the effect of gender and family politics historically on societies, and vice versa. She is best known for her 1987 book, The Chalice and the Blade, in which she coined the terms "partnership" and "dominator".[1][2]
She has written and been interviewed in over 500 articles. Her work is covered in publications ranging from Scientific American, Behavioral Science, Futures, Political Psychology, The Christian Science Monitor, Challenge, and UNESCO Courier to Brain and Mind, Human Rights Quarterly, International Journal of Women's Studies, and World Encyclopedia of Peace, as well as chapters for books published by trade and university presses (e.g., Cambridge, Stanford, and Oxford University).
Eisler pioneered the expansion of human rights theory and action to include the majority of humanity: women and children.
Her research provides a new perspective on our past, present, and possibilities for the future, including a new social and political agenda for building a more humane and environmentally sustainable world.
Her newest works draw from social and biological science, especially neuroscience, showing the interconnection between childhood/families, gender, economics, and story/language as cornerstones of either partnership-oriented or domination-oriented social systems.
Eisler’s multi-disciplinary whole-systems analysis highlights how traditions of domination underlie current crises, as well as how to move to a more equitable, sustainable, and caring world.
Life
Eisler was born in Vienna in 1931 before her family fled from the Nazis in 1939 to Cuba. She and her parents lived in a slum in Havana for seven years, after which they emigrated to the United States, to Miami, New York, and Chicago before finally settling in Los Angeles.[3]
Eisler has degrees in sociology and law from the University of California. She is an attorney, legal scholar, systems scientist, and author. She has published thirteen books, including one memoir, The Gate, published in 2000. Her first book, published in 1977, was Dissolution: No-Fault Divorce, Marriage, and the Future of Women. Her second book, published in 1979, was on the Equal Rights Amendment.[4]
Drawing on ten years of multidisciplinary research, in her third book The Chalice and the Blade (originally published in 1987) she coined the terms "partnership" and "dominator" to describe two underlying forms of society. These forms transcend conventional social categories like right/left, religious/secular, Eastern/Western, capitalist/socialist, etc.
Partnership-oriented societies are characterized by peace, equity, gender equality, sustainability, and caring. Dominator-oriented societies are characterized by sexism and other forms of in-group versus out-group rankings such as racism and anti-Semitism, as well as chronic war, ecological destruction, and unsustainability.
Eisler's research references the work of archaeologists Marija Gimbutas and Ian Hodder, anthropologists Douglas Fry, and many others. It shows that for millennia most human societies were built on a partnership-oriented structure. This meant society supported the human capacity to give, nurture, and sustain life. Caregiving was held in the highest regard. Shared responsibility and caring were the gold standard. According to archaeology, the fall into domination occurred between five and ten thousand years ago. This was a drop in the evolutionary bucket, as Eisler notes.[5][6]
Eisler's research indicates that the switch from partnership to domination led to a shift from in-group versus out-group attitudes. Group hierarchy and relationships were now based on factors such as sex, race, and other differences. Violence was ultimately the basis for maintaining these hierarchies, and was built into the system.
The “conquest of nature,” massive inequality, and devaluing the work of caring for people started to become common practice. The work of caring for our natural life-support systems was also undervalued, taken for granted, and removed from the money economy. Metrics illustrating this imbalance can be seen in Australian studies on the economic value of the unpaid care economy.
Domination systems normalize violence - from abusive authoritarian families, to the promotion of violence in modern politics, to destructive warfare between nations. Violence became a means to maintain power-over others as a social norm.[8]
In 1987, in partnership with her late husband David Elliot Loye, Eisler founded The Center for Partnership Studies, which was later renamed The Center for Partnership Systems. The organization is "dedicated to research, education, and building tools to construct economic and social systems that support human beings and the planet that sustains us."[9]
As of 2024, the Center acts as a digital hub of resources, tools, connections, and community designed to empower and educate people involved in the #PartnershipMovement worldwide.
The Power of Partnership podcast hosted by Cherri Jacobs Pruitt, and introduced by Dr. Eisler, brings you the voices of people who are applying the Partnership ethos to the roots of our most pressing challenges.
Nobel Peace Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called Eisler's book The Real Wealth of Nations “a template for the better world we have been so urgently seeking”, adding “this brilliant book shows how we can build economic systems that meet both our material and spiritual needs.” [10]
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who uses the title “first partner of California", wrote of Eisler’s book Nurturing Our Humanity “In a world that feels ever more dangerous, divided, and out of balance, Nurturing Our Humanity outlines the roadmap for a world that leads with partnership – where empathy, care, and community are valued above all, and each can fulfill our full human potential.” [11]
Gloria Steinem called her book Sacred Pleasure “Eisler’s most stunning, far-reaching, and practical gift – both to readers and to a world that must change or perish.” [13]
The children’s troubadour Raffi, called Eisler's book on education, Tomorrow’s Children “a pathway toward a child-honoring society.”
Philosopher Terence McKenna referenced Eisler's work throughout his writings and talks, including in The Archaic Revival. In 1988, Eisler and McKenna gave a talk entitled Man And Woman At The End Of History together in Ojai CA, Mill Valley.[15]
Her work is taught in high schools, universities, and corporate learning environments, and has influenced people worldwide.
Comments on Eisler’s keynotes:
“I wanted to make sure you appreciate the remarkable impact you had on the entire leadership team at Case Western Reserve University when you gave that inspirational keynote address to our deans, vice presidents, and senior faculty. Your talk sent more reverberations through our community than any speaker we'd ever had.” Edward M. Hundert, M.D., President, Case Western Reserve University, 2002-2006
"Riane Eisler spoke to the hearts and the heads of the top women at Microsoft. She was compelling not only in her compassion and humanity, but even more so with her strong logic and sense of urgency. She is a wonderful, inspiring speaker!" Alex Loeb, Former Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Corporation
Awards
Among Eisler’s many awards are:
2022 Centers for Compassion, Humanitarian Award
Honorary member, Club of Budapest (other honorary members include Mikhail Gorbachev)
Dianic Wicca, also known as Dianic Witchcraft, is a modern pagan goddess tradition focused on female experience and empowerment. Leadership is by women, who may be ordained as priestesses, or in less formal groups that function as collectives. While some adherents identify as Wiccan, it differs from most traditions of Wicca in that only goddesses are honored.
Dominator culture refers to a model of society where fear and force maintain rigid understandings of power and superiority within a hierarchical structure. Futurist and writer Riane Eisler first popularized this term in her book The Chalice and the Blade. In it, Eisler positions the dominator model in contrast to the partnership model, a more egalitarian structure of society founded on mutual respect among its inhabitants. In dominator culture, men rule over women, whereas partnership culture values men and women equally.
The Empress (III) is the third trump or Major Arcana card in traditional tarot decks. It is used in card games as well as divination.
Carolyn Merchant is an American ecofeminist philosopher and historian of science most famous for her theory on The Death of Nature, whereby she identifies the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century as the period when science began to atomize, objectify, and dissect nature, foretelling its eventual conception as composed of inert atomic particles. Her works are important in the development of environmental history and the history of science. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Environmental History, Philosophy, and Ethics at UC Berkeley.
The Venus of Laussel is an 18.11-inch-high (46.0-centimetre) limestone bas-relief of a nude woman. It is painted with red ochre and was carved into the limestone of a rock shelter in the commune of Marquay, in the Dordogne department of south-western France. The carving is associated with the Gravettian Upper Paleolithic culture. It is currently displayed in the Musée d'Aquitaine in Bordeaux, France.
Androcracy is a form of government in which the government rulers are male. The males, especially fathers, have the central roles of political leadership, moral authority, and control of property. It is also sometimes called a phallocracy or andrarchy or an androcentric or phallocratic society.
The Goddess movement is a pseudoscientific revivalistic Neopagan religious movement which includes spiritual beliefs and practices that emerged primarily in the United States in the late 1960s and predominantly in the Western world during the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction both against Abrahamic religions, which exclusively have gods who are referred to using masculine grammatical articles and pronouns, and secularism. It revolves around Goddess worship and the veneration for the divine feminine, and may include a focus on women or on one or more understandings of gender or femininity.
Memetic engineering, also meme engineering, is a term developed by Leveious Rolando, John Sokol, and Gibron Burchett based on Richard Dawkins' theory of memes.
The First Sex is a 1971 book by the American librarian Elizabeth Gould Davis, considered part of the second wave of feminism. In the book, Gould Davis aimed to show that early human society consisted of matriarchal "queendoms" based around worship of the "Great Goddess", and characterised by pacifism and democracy. Gould Davis argued that the early matriarchal societies attained a high level of civilization, which was largely wiped out as a result of the "patriarchal revolution". She asserted that patriarchy introduced a new system of society, based on property rights rather than human rights, and worshipping a stern and vengeful male deity instead of the caring and nurturing Mother Goddess.
Kate Blewett is a documentary film-maker in the United Kingdom. She is best known for her documentaries on human rights abuses, such as The Dying Rooms and Bulgaria's Abandoned Children.
Global citizenship is a form of transnationality, specifically the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader global class of "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives their nationality or other, more local identities, but that such identities are given "second place" to their membership in a global community. Extended, the idea leads to questions about the state of global society in the age of globalization.
Margaret Atieno Ogola was a Kenyan Catholic novelist who wrote The River and the Source and its sequel, I Swear by Apollo.
Cultural transformation theory proposes that societies used to follow a “partnership model” of civilization but over time, it gave way to today's current “dominator model” of civilization. This theory was first proposed by Riane Eisler, a cultural scholar, in her book The Chalice and the Blade. Eisler affirms that societies exist on a partnership-domination continuum but we as a species have moved away from our former partnership orientation to a more domination orientation by uplifting masculine ideals over feminine ideals. She insists that people do not have to live in a society based on the rule of one gender class over the other. There is historical evidence that another type of society, where all individuals are equal, is possible.
The Great Goddess hypothesis theorizes that, in Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and/or Neolithic Europe and Western Asia and North Africa, a singular, monotheistic female deity was worshipped.
Feminism is one theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes, even though many feminist movements and ideologies differ on exactly which claims and strategies are vital and justifiable to achieve equality.
Ecofeminism is a branch of feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in her book Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974). Ecofeminist theory asserts a feminist perspective on Green politics that calls for an egalitarian, collaborative society in which there is no one dominant group. Today, there are several branches of ecofeminism, with varying approaches and analyses, including liberal ecofeminism, spiritual/cultural ecofeminism, and social/socialist ecofeminism. Interpretations of ecofeminism and how it might be applied to social thought include ecofeminist art, social justice and political philosophy, religion, contemporary feminism, and poetry.
The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future is a 1987 book by Riane Eisler. The author presents a conceptual framework for studying social systems with particular attention to how a society constructs roles and relations between the female and male halves of humanity.
Carol C. Gould is an American philosopher and feminist theorist. Since 2009, she has taught at City University of New York, where she is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College, and in the Doctoral Programs of Philosophy and Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she is Director of the Center for Global Ethics and Politics at the Ralph Bunche Institute. Gould is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Philosophy. Her 2004 book Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights received the 2009 David Easton Award which is given by the American Political Science Association "for a book that broadens the horizons of contemporary political science." Her 2014 book Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots of Global Justice received the 2015 Joseph B. Gittler Award from the American Philosophical Association for "an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences."
David Elliot Loye was an American author, psychologist, and evolutionary systems scientist.
Mamie Odessa Hale was a leader in public health and a midwife consultant who worked in Arkansas for the Department of Health from 1945 to 1950. During this time, Hale's objective was to educate and train 'granny midwives.' Her efforts were in place to address the public health disparity between black and white women that was currently evident.
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