Riane Eisler

Riane Tennenhaus Eisler (born July 22, 1931) is a cultural historian, systems scientist, educator, attorney, speaker, and author whose work on cultural transformation has inspired scholars and social activists. Her research has impacted many fields, including history, literature, philosophy, art, economics, psychology, sociology, education, organizational development, political science, and healthcare. Eisler was born in Vienna, fled from the Nazis with her parents to Cuba as a small child, and later emigrated to the United States. She obtained degrees in sociology and law from UCLA; taught pioneering classes on women and the law at UCLA; and now teaches in the graduate Transformative Leadership Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is Editor in Chief of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies at the University of Minnesota and President of the Center for Partnership Studies, dedicated to research and education on the partnership model introduced by Eisler’s research.

Eisler proposes that new social paradigms are needed that transcend the limitations of conventional social categories such as religious vs. secular, right vs. left, capitalist vs. communist, East vs. West, and pre-industrial vs. industrial or post-industrial. She notes that societies in all these categories have been repressive and violent, and that none answer the question of what kinds of institutions and beliefs support more equitable and peaceful relations. In addressing this question, Eisler’s multidisciplinary, cross-cultural research resulted in a new conceptual framework for understanding and improving social systems: the partnership-domination continuum. The identification of the partnership model and the domination model as two underlying social configurations requires a new analytical approach that includes social features that are currently ignored or marginalized, such as the social construction of human/nature connections, parent/child relations, gender roles and relations, and the way we assess the value of the work of caring for people and nature.

Domination Culture

She introduced the term domination culture to describe a system of top-down rankings ultimately backed up by fear or force - man over man, man over woman, race over race, religion over religion, and man over nature. The configuration of the domination system has four mutually supporting core components: Top-down control in both families and states or tribes, and all institutions in between; Rigid male dominance—and with this, the devaluation by both men and women of anything stereotypically considered “feminine,” including care and caregiving; The acceptance, even idealization, of violence as a means of imposing one’s will on others; A system of beliefs that presents relations of dominating or being dominated as inevitable and desirable. Examples of societies that orient closely to the domination model include Nazi Germany, Khomeini's Iran, and earlier cultures where chronic violence and despotic rule were the norm.

Partnership Society

By contrast, the configuration of the partnership system consists of the following four mutually supporting core components: A more democratic and egalitarian structure in both the family and state or tribe; equal partnership between women and men, and with this, a high valuing in women and men, as well as in social and economic policy of traits and activities stereotypically considered feminine such as care and caregiving; a low degree of abuse and violence, because they are not needed to maintain rigid rankings of domination; A system of beliefs that presents relations of partnership and mutual respect as normal and desirable.

Examples of partnership-oriented societies include the Teduray, a tribal society studied by the University of California anthropologist Stuart Schlegel; agrarian societies such as the Minangkabau, studied by the University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday; and technologically advanced ones like Sweden, Norway, and Finland, where there is a more democratic and egalitarian structure in both the family and the state, more equal partnership between men and women (for example, women are 40-50 percent of national legislators), and more caring social policies such as universal health care, paid parental leave, and high quality early childhood education, as well as the rejection of violence in both intimate and international relations.

Partnership/Domination Continuum

In comparing partnership and domination systems, Eisler analyzes the androcracy (governance of social organization dominated by males) of Indo-European and other societies, versus greater orientation to the partnership model (as distinct from matriarchy) for the social organization of Neolithic Europe and the later Minoan civilization that flourished in prehistoric Bronze Age Crete.

To support the idea that neither men nor women dominated one another, Eisler cites archeological evidence from southeast Europe, especially Crete, drawing much from the research of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, James Mellaart, Nikolaos Platon, Vere Gordon Childe, and Nanno Marinatos. She also draws heavily from cross-cultural studies, such as Douglas P. Fry's work on foraging cultures that orient to the partnership model, noting that for most of our history humans lived in foraging groups.

Her work has allowed many other scholars to apply partnership/domination and cultural transformation conceptual frameworks to fields ranging from politics and economics to religion, business, and education.

No society orients completely to a domination system or a partnership system. It is always a matter of degree in what Eisler calls a partnership-domination continuum. But with these configurations in mind, much that otherwise seems random and disconnected begins to fall into place – including how economic systems have been developed, as Eisler documents in The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics , as well as in many articles and book chapters, including “Economics as If Caring Matters” in Challenge.

Eisler's international bestseller The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future (Harper Collins San Francisco, 1987) was hailed by anthropologist Ashley Montagu as "the most important book since Darwin's Origin of Species (sic). The book has sold 500,000 copies. It has been translated into 26 languages, including most European languages and Chinese, Turkish, Russian, Korean, Hebrew, Japanese, and Arabic.

Her 2007 book, The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics, proposes a new approach to economics that gives visibility and value to the essential human work of caring for people and the planet. It has been hailed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as “a template for the better world we have been so urgently seeking,” Peter Senge as “desperately needed,” and by Gloria Steinem as “revolutionary.”

In 2014, Eisler co-authored Transforming Interprofessional Partnerships: A New Framework for Nursing and Partnership-Based Health Care with University of Minnesota professor Teddie Potter, which provides healthcare professionals with the tools to re-examine current healthcare systems and build a more caring, sustainable system. *The book was the winner of the 2015 Capstone International Book Award and a 2014 American Journal of Nursing Book Award.

Eisler's other books include the award-winning The Power of Partnership and Tomorrow’s Children, as well as Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body – New Paths to Power and Love, an exploration of the origins of human violence, and Women, Men, and the Global Quality of Life, which statistically documents the key role of the status of women in a nation’s general quality of life.

In 2011, Tiroir A Films (TAF) based their documentary, Mother, Caring for 7 Billion on the theories of Riane Eisler.

Riane Eisler keynotes conferences worldwide, and is a consultant to business and government on applications of the partnership model introduced in her work. International venues have included Germany at the invitation of Prof. Rita Süssmuth, President of the Bundestag (the German Parliament) and Daniel Goeudevert (Chair of Volkswagen International); Colombia, invited by the Mayor of Bogota; and the Czech Republic, invited by Václav Havel (President of the Czech Republic). In 2013, Eisler was invited to speak during a Congressional Briefing on "The Economic Return from Investing in Care Work and Early Childhood Education" and to speak for the United States State Department.

Riane Eisler is a founding member of the General Evolution Research Group (GERG), a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science and World Business Academy, a member of the Club of Rome, and a Councilor of the World Future Council in Europe (link) She is a member of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality along with the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and other spiritual leaders. She is also co-founder of the Spiritual Alliance to Stop Intimate Violence (SAIV). She is the president of the Center for Partnership Studies, dedicated to research and education. In 2003 she was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto, an initiative of the Center for Partnership Studies, dedicated to research and education.

She is the author of over 300 essays and articles in publications ranging from Behavioral Science, Futures, Political Psychology, and The UNESCO Courier to Brain and Mind, Yes!, the Human Rights Quarterly, The International Journal of Women's Studies, and the World Encyclopedia of Peace.

Eisler was one of the founders of the Women's Rights Law Reporter, the first legal periodical to focus exclusively on women's rights. She is also an active Global Council Member at the International Museum of Women.

Riane Eisler inspired Professor Min Jiayin of the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to publish and edit The Chalice and the Blade in Chinese Culture (published in 1995 by China Social Sciences Publishing House). Min Jiayin's book tested Eisler's cultural transformation theory in Chinese culture, and found that there was also a shift from partnership to domination in Asian prehistory.

In her 2008 book, Gender and Information Technology: Moving Beyond Access to Co-Create Global Partnership, Mary Kirk uses Eisler's cultural transformation theory to offer an interdisciplinary, social systems perspective on issues of access to technology. Gender and Information Technology explores how shifting from dominator towards partnership systems—as reflected in four primary social institutions (communication, media, education, and business)--might help us move beyond the simplistic notion of access to co-create a real digital revolution worldwide.

Riane Eisler inspired Professor Antonella Riem and a group of scholars based at the University of Udine, the Partnership Studies Group (PSG), to develop significant multi- and inter-disciplinary research, which investigates the presence and meaning of partnership/dominator configurations within World Literatures in English, Language, Education and Arts.

Eisler has received many honors, including the Humanist Pioneer Award and the first Alice Paul ERA award. She received the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's Distinguished Peace Leadership Award for "demonstrating courageous leadership in the cause of peace". She was the only woman selected for inclusion in Macrohistory and Macrohistorians for her work as a cultural historian and evolutionary theorist. Eisler also serves on the Advisory Council of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

The Center for Partnership Studies (CPS), located in Pacific Grove, CA., was established in 1987 for the purpose of researching, developing, and disseminating education on the partnership model as developed by Riane Eisler.

The Caring Economy Campaign is a project of the Center for Partnership studies that is focused on building a partnership system with clear measures of the economic benefits of the work of caring for people and nature. To that end, the Caring Economy Campaign has developed Social Wealth Economic Indicators (SWEIs) to help guide policy-makers in developing an economic system that takes into account unpaid or underpaid labor, overall health and wellbeing, and the general welfare of the population.

The mission of The Spiritual Alliance to Stop Intimate Violence (SAIV) is to stop intimate violence — the training ground for the violence of war, terrorism, political repression, and crime. SAIV was founded by Riane Eisler with Nobel Peace Laureate Betty Williams and is a project of the Center for Partnership Studies, a not-for-profit 501(C)(3) organization recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization by the United Nations.