Birthing the Balanced Future: How Matriarchal Thinking Can Heal a World in Crisis
No one is coming to save us. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
A Mindset Reset for International Women’s Day
No one is coming to save us. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
These words, often echoed by movements for justice, ring urgent today.
As patriarchal systems crumble under the weight of their own exploitation- the onslaught of headlines of calls for war, zero-sum game thinking, “my rocket’s bigger than yours” mentality, extraction with no replenishment, ecological collapse, inequality, and spiritual alienation—the future demands not repair but rebirth. A rebirth rooted not in dominance but in balance. Not in hierarchy, but in care. Not in “masculine” or “feminine,” but in the sustainable, integrated dance of both.
This International Women’s Day, we confront a paradox: It’s been said that the future is female, but not because women alone will save us. It’s because matriarchal thinking — collaborative, regenerative, life-honoring — is the antidote to the crisis that patriarchal logic created. And it’s a mindset all genders must apply and embody.
In 2020, weeks before the pandemic, I spoke in Morocco at a 75th Anniversary UN summit for Sustainable Development Goals, with the theme focusing on youth, gender and education. It was buzzing with young women students, engineers, artists, and entrepreneurs. Their eyes blazed with plans to electrify villages, improve immigration challenges, and green deserts. This was the future: bold, collaborative, unapologetically hopeful.
I walked away inspired and energized after speaking, learning and sharing with these young women (and men). Their hopes and dreams to contribute to a better world.
Then COVID hit. For a moment, the world paused, the dust settled, the air cleared. We glimpsed the “Great Reset.” But fear and amnesia dragged us backward. Now, as polycrises mount, especially in the US, we must reclaim that vision, with the integrated matriarchal, balanced mindset.
Why Mindset is the Root of Revolution, Rebirth & Regeneration
We cannot talk about getting out of our current mess without talking about mindsets. The same mindsets that got us into this mess can NOT be the same mindsets that get us out.
I’m going to be writing and teaching a LOT about the mindsets required for the future - a “cognitive revolution” I’ve been lecturing on and advocating since 2016.
And it’s important to note for the rest of this piece: When I speak of “masculine” and “feminine,” I’m referring to archetypal energies or modes of being (cognitive, psychological, emotional), not biological sex or rigid gender roles. These are universal, fluid forces that exist within all people, regardless of identity. They represent two complementary ways of engaging with the world, each with its own strengths and shadow sides, that we all hold within us, and our survival depends on awakening them.”
The crises we face — climate collapse, inequality, political polarization and fracturing, white supremacy and extremism, exploitation of the working class by oligarchs — are not just systemic failures. They are symptoms of a fractured mindset: a 5,000-year-old story that glorifies domination, scarcity, and separation.
To dismantle toxic systems, we must first dismantle the mental frameworks that built them:
Patriarchal thinking (hierarchical, extractive, either/or logic) is not “natural” — it’s a conditioned program. It’s why we see forests as lumber, not kin; why we equate “strength” with control rather than collaboration; why we still believe “growth” can be limitless in a limited environment. In medicine, that’s called cancer.
Matriarchal thinking (regenerative, relational, both/and logic) is the antidote. But this isn’t about swapping “masculine” for “feminine” — it’s about integrating the full spectrum of human capacities:
Fierce clarity and deep receptivity
Boundaried action and radical care
Innovation and ancestral remembrance
Mindset shifts are urgent because systems are downstream of consciousness. Colonialism didn’t start with ships — it started with the belief that some lives matter more than others. The climate crisis didn’t start with coal — it started with the delusion that Earth is inert.
The Mindset Reset We Need
From Scarcity → Sacredness
Patriarchal logic thrives on lack: “There’s not enough, so I must hoard.” Regenerative mindset: “Abundance flows when we share.”From Either/Or → Both/And
The old story demands binaries: Win or lose. Human or nature. Reason or intuition. The new story? We need solar panels and forest guardians. Grief and hope. Science and spirit.From Domination → Reciprocity
Rights of Nature laws (granting legal personhood to rivers) aren’t just policy — they’re a mindset revolt against human exceptionalism.From Individualism → Interbeing
Mycelial thinking: What harms the hive, harms me. What heals the soil, heals us all.
This is Not “Woo Woo” — It’s Survival
When Costa Rica abolished its military to fund education and ecology, that was a mindset shift.
When Kerala’s (where I lived for several years in the Southwestern coast of India along the Arabian Sea) women-led governance slashed inequality, that was a mindset shift.
When young activists sue governments for climate crimes, they’re hacking the legal system — and the collective imagination.
The “Great Forgetting” post-COVID proved a hard truth: We can NOT architect better systems with old mental software.
Patriarchy’s Dead End (And the Trap of “Masculine Energy”)
When Elon Musk stated that “empathy is a weakness of Western civilisation”, and Mark Zuckerberg recently called for more “masculine energy” in corporate culture, they both revealed a dangerous delusion: that the world suffers from a lack of patriarchal thinking.
But what is patriarchy if not what’s been in power for millennia, rising to dominate and colonize the world? The celebration of extraction? Of winners and losers? Of treating Earth and her people as infinite resources?
Why the Current Imbalance is Killing Us
Patriarchal systems (governments, corporations, even education) over-index on “masculine” energy:
Extractive economies: Prioritize short-term profit (masculine) over planetary care (feminine).
Toxic leadership: Reward domination (shadow masculine) over collaboration (feminine).
Climate crisis: A result of exploiting nature (seen as inert “resource”) rather than relating to it as a living partner.
But doubling down on either energy alone fails:
Hyper-masculine systems: Create burnout, inequality, and ecological collapse.
Hyper-feminine systems (rare but possible): Risk lack of structure or decisive action.
The Goal: Dynamic Balance, Not Either/Or
Matriarchal thinking, by contrast, asks: What sustains life? It’s the Indigenous grandmother teaching her granddaughter to speak to rivers. It’s the Ugandan activist demanding climate reparations. It’s the Swedish parent lobbying for six-hour workdays to prioritize care. It’s not about biology — it’s about values.
Yet balance is key. We need the clarity of “masculine” vision (decisive action, structure) and the depth of “feminine” wisdom (empathy, adaptability). As the Taoist yin-yang teaches: one cannot exist without the other. The goal is integration, not inversion. A regenerative future requires integrating both energies:
Solar energy grids (masculine: innovation) designed with circular, waste-free principles (feminine: cyclical thinking).
Policy-making that blends data-driven strategy (masculine) with empathy for marginalized voices (feminine).
Leadership that’s both visionary (masculine) and humble enough to listen (feminine).
Example: Practical fire management (masculine) paired with reciprocal land stewardship to Earth (feminine).
The Bottom Line
In Morocco, those young women still text me updates. One just launched a solar startup. Another organized a protest against period poverty. They haven’t forgotten the reset we glimpsed. Neither can we.
I’m not advocating for a “feminine future” to replace a “masculine past.” I’m demanding a mature synthesis of both energies — a world where logic dances with intuition, power flows with compassion, and progress serves life.
The future isn’t a noun — it’s a verb. A muscle. A choice. This International Women’s Day, let’s choose to birth a balanced world.
As Adrienne Maree Brown says: “We are in an imagination battle.” The mindsets we cultivate now — flexible, integrated, and defiantly holistic — will shape whether we evolve or unravel.
Dedicated to all who refuse to let the world burn. The future is fractal — and it needs you to help make it regenerative.
Not for nothing you see the natural emergence of young feminine leadership in the US political arena and (rather inauthentic) masculinity fighting for relevance.
This speaks so deeply to me and illuminates in more clearly defined terms, practices that I’ve been developing & living within since 2009, both as a woman & an artist. I’ve been, since that time, consistently shifting and elevating into new forms of thinking, living, and being that align with everything that you’ve stated here. I’ve yet to come across any one person who laid it all with as much clarity and definition as you. I’m deeply grateful and appreciative & fully tuned in. With Love, Darling Bonnie