Latest / The Priestess Temple Podcast / Ep 20: The Cornell 7 Case & Reawakening the Matriarchal State
Transcript
- Embodied By Jenna: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Priestess Temple Podcast. I am your host and dark feminine embodiment guide, Priestess Paradise Rain. This is your space to come home to yourself as the goddess through learning about womb wisdom, somatics, and identity work. So that you can heal from heartbreak and have more intimate and fulfilling relationships. I am so grateful that you are here. Hey goddess. Today I wanted to talk about the fundamental differences between patriarchy and matriarchy in light of the Cornell 7 case. Now, this case has been blowing up on social media. I'm sure you've probably heard about how in 2024 there were seven male students attending Cornell who drugged and gang raped a female student for several hours. The thing that makes this case unique is that the men who were raping this woman texted their fraternity brothers in a group chat that contained 57 men and they stated that they were performing this rape and invited their brothers to join. No one else joined in. However, nobody who received the text message stopped what was going on. Nobody reported them. Nobody tried to save the girl. And in light of this happening, all Cornell did to reprimand the seven students that gang raped her was had them write an essay about what they had done. And so two years after this incident occurred. Things are now coming to light in the media only because the woman who was violated is taking legal action against the school and against these men. And this has caused so much anger and outrage and awareness on social media. Rightfully so, we should be feeling a lot of emotions right now. over this incident. there's a sad reality that this isn't an isolated occurrence. There are several more women that are coming forward from different schools or just from having different incidences happen within their life sharing their stories publicly on social media. And I truly believe that the patriarchal context in which we were raised is the problem here. Both men and women have been raised within a power structure that disproportionately benefits men and keeps power and resources within the hands of men who do not deserve it. And when we look at human societies throughout the course of history, patriarchy is only a very recent development. Typically, societies would be run in a matriarchal way, where women were at the center of the community as the natural born leaders we've come so far away from that as a society and as humans. And I see on social media that a lot of people are pointing the finger at men, stating that men are the problem that all men perpetuate harm and violence against women. And I think that this is a really rash generalization And so today, what I am going to do is I am going to explain. The fundamental difference between matriarchy and patriarchy through two different experiences that I have had at group gatherings and festivals over the past year. And then I am going to talk about what you can do in your day to day life to take action in light of this Cornell 7 case to change. The way that you move through the world so that we can get away from these harmful patriarchal structures that systematically disempower women and rise up to take our power back as we center women at the forefront of society as the natural-born leaders that we are. And so without further ado, let's get into it. I went to two different festivals over this past year, and I had completely different experiences attending these events. So the first event that I went to was Huluen Music Festival, which is down in Live Oak, Florida. And this music festival had recently changed hands and was bought out by Live Music. Nation. Now, if you know anything about the company Live Nation, They run in a structure that is largely patriarchal. think it in a pyramid shape. At the top of the pyramid, the number one priority is profit. Then you have men. Ranking just underneath that, who make the decisions about how the company is going to run. And then underneath men, you have women. Underneath women, you have children. And then underneath children, you have nature at the very bottom the lowest priority on the totem pole. And as I attended this event, I could see this playing out so clearly in how the festival was run. And the impact that this festival had on the environment. For example, of the food was at a jacked up price so that the festival could profit off of the low grade cheap food that was provided through a company that I would assume would be like Cisco or US Foods. Completely devoid of nutrition and substance. We were charged a service processing fee on the credit card reader, and we were not allowed to pay in cash. So every transaction at the festival, we had to pay an extra two to three dollars. And we could not avoid that fee because it was a cashless festival. At the festival, people were exchanging all kinds of little plastic doodads, like plastic little sprouts that you would put on your hat, covering their body in glow sticks, this single use type of plastic that was just gonna go into a landfill. And I'm telling you, there was garbage. Everywhere, like there was little to no thought about the impact that this festival would have on the environment. And as I was there participating, I was shocked and I was kind of disgusted. I could feel the hollowness and the emptiness of the festival event. And then on the final night, I was in a crowd full of people. And there was this guy who was on drugs, and he was kind of stumbling all over the place. well, he ended up stumbling into somebody's stuff. And when he touched their stuff, a man in the crowd reacted and pushed him. Then all of a sudden, there were a bunch of people who were pushing this man who was clearly intoxicated and unable to move his body in a way that would allow him to get away from their stuff and stand up safely. And I'm watching these people push this man. And I was so upset that I ended up finding the man. And grabbing him and asking him if he was okay. He was incoherent. He couldn't really talk well. And he ended up losing his shoes in the scuffle. And so I pulled him out of the crowd. I got him to a safe place at the side. I ended up buying him a water bottle. My friend went back into the crowd to find his shoes. And then when he came to a few moments later, I was probably holding this guy and hugging him for a good 10 minutes. He just ended up walking away from me, not saying a word. Yo, this was one of the scariest things that I have experienced because there was just a complete lack of humanity and disregard for this person's safety. And after that incident, that I was never going to go back again. And within this occurrence, you can see how this patriarchal structure where profit is at the top, everyone's own individuality is placed below that. And then the well being of community and nature is at the very bottom of the totem pole. This is the current context of society that we have grown up in. And you could see it reflected through that festival experience that I had. Now, fast forward to a few months later, I went to a different gathering called Spirit Weavers in Oregon. And this gathering was a women's gathering that was run underneath a matriarchal context. And in matriarchy, Women are at the center of the community. We are thinking about how to benefit the entire society as a whole. There is no hierarchical structure. All of the resources are distributed in a way that benefits everybody. And nature and children are at the forefront of the community, Making sure that the resources that we have are used in a way that is sustainable And that children are brought up in a way to think about the well-being of one another. This festival experience was completely different, y'all. I am telling you, it opened with a fire ceremony where we honored the elements and indigenous people of color. We honored the land that the festival was taking place on. We had a three hour opening ceremony when we talked about community rules and how to treat each other with respect so that things ran smoothly. This was a zero waste festival, okay? And so we had to bring our own cups and silverware and plates and bowls to eat every single meal. All of the food was organic and prepared with great intention so that it would nourish our bodies and give us lots of nutrients. And then we would wash our dishes after every single meal in a way that consumed as little water as possible using a three-compartment sink that was filled with maybe two inches of water. Throughout the entire festival, over four days. 1,200 women created eight bags of trash. That is insane, y'all. Eight bags of trash for 1,200 women. All of the toilets were composting toilets that used no water. And the community was at the forefront of this gathering. Every single day we would have more announcements bringing up. Points that came up in previous sessions and days to make sure that everyone at the gathering was taken care of and comfortable and respected as a whole. And after leaving that gathering, I truly experienced the closest thing to matriarchy that I have ever. Ever known in my life. I am telling you, the way that this gathering was ran was so different than anything that I had ever experienced before because I had felt so safe and I had felt such a connection with the earth and with the other women at this gathering. And it really made me think about. What would happen in our day-to-day society if we lived within more of a matriarchal context? Because after coming back home to New York and being in my day-to-day life that is steeped in patriarchy, I got really depressed. I felt such a lack of connection because here we're all focused on work and our own individuality, right? It's like My house, my car, my white picket fence. And I felt a severe lack of community and connection. And it really got me thinking about how these two different festival experiences relate to this Cornell 7 case and what we can do moving forward as a society. To remove patriarchy and reinstill matriarchy into our day-to-day lives because, y'all, this is the way. As women, we are the natural-born leaders, and we have just been stripped of our power due to the systems that we have been raised in. And so the first thing I want you to question is. Are these systems and structures actually serving me? When I had that experience between Huluen Festival, which was ran by Live Nation, and Spirit Weavers which was ran by a group of women, I could see that the structure that Live Nation was operating under was harmful to the environment. And it was not something that I wanted to invest my time or my money in. When we look at this Cornell Seven case, we have to look at the college, right? Like the college is inherently ran underneath a patriarchal lens. And so I, for one, am not shocked that the college did not reprimand these men in a way where justice was served to the woman. Okay. And so we can't put faith into these patriarchal. systems and structures and organizations. I really want you to question if the government is operating in a way that benefits women and children and nature. If colleges are operating in a way that benefits women and children in nature, we can go on and on and on. Think about the medical system in this country. Think about the Food system in this country. Think about the current way that our society is run. Can you put a lot of faith into these systems and structures? I think this Cornell 7 case is a big opportunity for us to take a long, hard look at how things are running and to really. Ask ourselves if this is something that we want to continue to participate in or not. Defund colleges, defund the police, defund the medical system. Why are we investing our time, energy, and resources into these systems that we know are not advantageous to bettering society as a whole? Second off, we have to get out from behind our phones and we have to come together in community. I am telling you, after having that experience at Hulaween where that man was incapacitated and people were just pushing him around, and I was the only person who sprung into action to help him, I could see how numbed out people are. From sitting behind a screen all day. There is a serious lack of connection going on within our society. And it needs to change by coming together face to face. So I'm telling you, just get out of your house, get out from behind your screen, get into a coffee shop, take a yoga class, come together for book. Club, right? Even maybe start reading matriarchal literature with your close friends. We need to bring the humanness back into humanity because we have completely lost it, y'all. When those men could sit there in a group chat knowing that a woman was being raped and doing nothing, it is so similar to that experience I had at Hula Wien where that man was incapacitated and people were pushing him around and doing nothing. Okay. We are so numbed out from scrolling and sitting behind a screen that we are becoming complacent to acting when an injustice has occurred. And so we need to come together and we need to get angry. I, for one, am not here to point the finger at men because, again, we have all been raised within these patriarchal systems. That disempower women who are the natural born leaders. And so there has been a lack of education for both men and women of how to live within a society that benefits the community at large. And so instead of being separate, instead of pointing the finger at men, instead of having fear and hate towards All men, we need to really look at men and talk with them and have conversations about this Cornell 7 case and come together and see what we can do to do better for one another. This is making me so emotional because I think that the systems at play of patriarchy have really instilled this. Fear in us since COVID in 2020, where we were all locked within our houses and made to be separate from one another behind our phones and behind masks. And I can see how it has played out in the experience I had at that festival, and how we really need to stop and take a minute and look at each other's eyes and ask each other. What do you need? Seriously. because these patriarchal systems want us to remain separate. And so just pointing the finger at all men and saying that all men are harmful and all men are wrong is only going to perpetuate this harmful ideology. Because if we're working towards matriarchy, we're working towards bettering the whole and bettering the community and really coming together to understand. How to support one another when times get challenging. And finally, last but not least, we need to center women unapologetically. Okay. So, ladies, for you in your life, you need to center yourself. You need to center your wants, your needs, your desires, your voice. You are not being selfish. You are not being too much for asking for what you want and for advocating for yourself. And men need to start centering women. Men need to start learning from women about how they can be of service to women and to the greater good. I think there tends to be a hesitation after living in this patriarchal context to say centering women. You know, it's so common to say de-centering men and to point the finger and blame men and say they're bad. But I'm telling you, we need to stop focusing on who's wrong here, and we need to start focusing on what we can do to move forward as a collective. And the solution is to center. Women to lift up women to listen to women's voices and to get women into positions of power and leadership. And the way that we do this, ladies, is through knowing ourselves and prioritizing ourselves and going after our wants, our needs and desires, And so, men, this is a great time to approach women in your life and to have a conversation about this Cornell 7 case to see how they're feeling, to see how you can be of support and to see how you can move forward differently to honor women as we move away from patriarchy and towards matriarchy, because I am telling you. When women return to their natural role as the leaders within this society, it benefits everyone because currently both men and women are suffering underneath the structures of patriarchy. And you see it depicted so clearly within this Cornell 7 case. And so moving forward. We need to ask ourselves, what systems and structures am I supporting? Where am I spending my time and my energy and my resources? How can I come together with community so that we can connect face to face as humans? And how can we center women within this society to lift them up? And hear what they have to say as the natural born leaders who are going to restore the rightful order that is matriarchy within this society. I am sending everyone who listened to this episode so much love. I would love to know what you are doing moving forward. To restore matriarchy within your life. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Priestess Temple Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share with members of your community. Comment, rate, and subscribe to the podcast so we can continue having these amazing conversations every week. I will see you next Thursday. And until then, remember, you are the goddess.