Ryan EislerAn Austrian-born American systems scientist, futurist, attorney, and human rights advocate, noted for her influential work on cultural transformation and gender equality. Best known for “Chalice and Plaque“He introduced the partnership versus hegemony model of social organization. He has received many honors, including Cross of Honor of the Republic of Austria for Science and Artthe Nuclear Peace Leadership AwardThe Dalai Lama was previously awarded, Center for Compassion Humanitarian Awardthe Humanitarian Pioneer Award, and bring between California Hall of Fame. He is the President of the Center for Partnership Systems and its Editor-in-Chief Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies at the University of Minnesota. Three of his books that can be highlighted Chalice and Blade-Now in its 57th US printing with 30 foreign editions, The real wealth of the nationAnd Nurturing Our Humanity: How Dominance and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Futures (Oxford University Press, 2019). These contributions amount to a second series with Eisler.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen Talks with Ryan Eisler about feminism, partnership systems, and hegemonic structures. Eisler reflects on the fragmented evolution of feminism and argues that many feminists are inherently “partners.” She emphasizes how historical amnesia about women’s struggles continues to obscure patterns of hegemony. Eisler highlights how early socialization normalizes hierarchies through gender, shaping greater inequality. His work attempts to reconnect these patterns, providing a systematic framework for understanding and ultimately transcending entrenched cultural and institutional hegemony.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We have previously discussed some of the historical contexts in which mainstream feminist discourse has many admirable qualities. Fill in the gaps, partnerships and philosophical orientations that you are expressing. You are basically like a self-healing structure that heals its own cracks. As you can see, Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro were working on related themes before the term feminism was widely used. This was mentioned in the first session. Following on from this, you have seen various evolutions in the meaning of the word through what is called a wave. How do you see the difference between the waves of feminism and the evolution of partnership studies, and where have they been similar or different over time? Is it fair?
Ryan Eisler: Well, I don’t really know the answer to that question because I don’t follow it closely. First, partnership evolution is everywhere. Every day, I learn about people who have somehow come across my work and taken it deeply. As for feminism, I have not followed its evolution. I know that feminism, indeed, feminism, includes different types. There is a caricature of feminism promoted by those who oppose feminism, portraying it as a male-hating ideology, but it is not. Some women have had very bad experiences with dominant-social men and distrust men. But most feminists are actually partners; They don’t know that. So it is difficult for me to answer this question. I know that young women who grew up with feminism often take it for granted that women can do the same things as men. So it’s all a bit complicated.
Jacobsen: The other question, which may be a little clearer than comparing and contrasting feminism with partnership, concerns the evolution of hegemonic systems in the 20th century and the early 21st century. This is a more central and substantive question, and it may also provide some insight into the evolution of feminism, because these ideologies are not just in the air, so to speak. They exist in human minds and population dynamics, and the way they interact is the focus of systematic analysis of the whole system in partnership.
Eisler: Well, the problem, as I see it, is that we as women are not taught history. Many young women feel that it has always been this way. They don’t know how women have struggled for hundreds of years, because it’s simply not taught. They don’t know about early feminists. It is only taught, if at all, in women’s studies. And women’s studies were taken up, of course, by those who fit into the academy because they asked questions like whether there was such a category as women. I find this a confusing question, because women are, yes, different and live in different situations, races and cultures, but oppression through dominance has been a persistent pattern, and a commonality shared by many women. The struggle, whether you want to call it participatory or feminist, has been going on for ages.
Jacobsen: As a final question for this session, would you argue that the neglect or exclusion of women’s history, both for women themselves and for men, is due to inadvertent influence, simply because they are dominant as part of a hegemonic system, or through conscious exclusion? For example, there are documented cases in recent US government proceedings where keyword-based filtering removed items containing terms such as “gay”, inadvertently affecting unrelated items such as the Enola gay debate. In such instances, the decision was conscious but poorly implemented, rather than outright carelessness, a function of flawed principles rather than an invisible, accepted system in which both men and women each operate.
Eisler: Well, I think there’s no question that the polarization we’re seeing today is partly a response to movements that are challenging hegemony in various areas. But all of us, even feminists, have been socialized to marginalize what happens to women and gender. In that sense, the tradition of dominance that we carry has really affected us, because the subjugation of women is part and parcel of the system of dominance. It is there that people first learn to distinguish racial, religious or ethnic, with hierarchy, starting with the basic distinction between men and women in the family, where most of us grow up. It is deeply organized and pervasive, so that even those who consider themselves progressive are often not, as they tend to marginalize gender. Now, there is a lot more awareness of gender today, including awareness of gender fluidity, but people don’t connect the dots. They do not see that if children observe women, and in a strict dominance system who is coded as “feminine”, inferior to men and who is coded as “masculine”, they internalize a template: a template that differentiates between superior and inferior, dominant and dominated, serving or being served. They don’t connect these patterns, and my job is to help people do that. If AI can recognize patterns, then surely human intelligence can too, but it is often fragmented by conventional methods that, at best, marginalize gender.
Jacobsen: Thank you so much for the opportunity and your time, Riane.
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen A writer-editor for Good Men Project With over 1,900 publications on the platform. He is its founder and publisher In-Site Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and its editor-in-chief In-Site: Interview (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332-9416), humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK registered charity 1177066), Humanist perspective (ISSN: 1719-6337), A further investigation (substack), vocal, moderate, New lighting project, Washington Outsider, rabble.caand other media. His bibliography can be found through the index Jacobsen Bank In-Site Publishing has more than 10,000 articles, interviews and republications in more than 200 outlets. He has held national and international leadership roles within humanitarian and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations including Canadian Journalists Association, Penn Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.
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