Can we talk about matriarchal spaces?
Because I think sometimes when people hear the word matriarchal, they immediately imagine patriarchy flipped upside down. Women holding all the power instead of men.
But that isn’t what draws me to matriarchal spaces at all.
At their best, matriarchal spaces aren’t about replacing one form of dominance with another. They’re about changing the way we think about leadership, community, power, and success.
They tend to make room for collaboration instead of constant competition.
They recognize care, empathy, intuition, and emotional intelligence as strengths rather than things that need to be separated from leadership.
Knowledge gets shared.
People teach one another.
Success can be collective.
There is an understanding that helping someone else grow doesn’t somehow diminish what you have built for yourself.
And none of that means there aren’t boundaries, accountability, expectations, ambition, or strong leadership. There absolutely should be.
Matriarchal does not mean passive.
It means strength doesn’t have to look like dominance.
It means leadership can be powerful without needing to control every person in the room.
It means asking, How do we make this community stronger? instead of only asking, How do I get ahead?
Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to these spaces.
The Sanctum is owned by my husband and me, but it is overwhelmingly women who breathe life into it every day. Most of our team is women. Most of our vendors are women. So many of the makers, practitioners, teachers, artists, and small business owners within these walls are women.
There is something incredibly powerful about watching women create ecosystems where other women can grow.
One woman gets an opportunity and holds the door open for another.
Someone learns something and teaches it.
Someone builds a platform and invites others onto it.
Someone finds her voice and then makes the room safer for the next woman to find hers.
That is the part of matriarchal culture that resonates so deeply with me.
Not women versus men.
Not women above men.
Not a bigger throne with a woman sitting on it.
A bigger table.
More chairs.
Shared knowledge.
Strong boundaries.
Community responsibility.
And the belief that power becomes a lot more interesting when we stop treating it like something there is only enough of for one person to have.