Could the answer be this simple?

we can fix everything.

Greetings! The Ancestral Homekeeper is a newsletter dedicated to slow & simple living for all of us. I’m Kristina, and I believe that the way we shape our lives at home will be reflected in our society at large. By blending the wisdom of our ancestors with contemporary thoughts on mental health, self nurturing, and social justice, we can find the path to changing our world. New letter is out every Sunday! (Except for last week, when I was still recovering from what turned out to be walking pneumonia. Thank you to those of you who checked in to make sure I was ok! I love you, and I am almost fully recovered. )

The window is streaked with fingerprints and sticker residue, but it doesn’t diminish the gasp that escapes me when I see that peachy golden hue painting the underside of the clouds. The day dawns again, and I realize I am surprised at my current capacity to feel this simple joy and hope, despite the reverberations of war and pain and tumultuous politics that echo around the globe. 

Don't worry. This is not a letter that will lay out my opinions on the current situation in the Middle East — after two weeks, I think many of us are feeling exhausted, confused, and pained by the news reports of never-ending horror, and the competing hot takes and divisive denouncements echoing through social media. Nor will I comment on the circus of the US House of Representatives, other than to say this is an absurdly frivolous circus indeed. Nor will I offer a direct opinion on the newest climate reports, which state that we are warming the earth even faster that previously feared. 

In a few years, maybe we will have moved on to other problems, other manifestations of what I believe is the core issue that has plagued most of the world for most of human history. These problems will deem any opinions on current political situations antiquated or out of touch. But the root of it all will remain. The anguish will still be present.

In times of turmoil, it is easy to look back and long for a simpler time. We think of our ancestors and their lives that were marked by hard work, simple meals, and the warmth of community. There was no internet or TikTok or politically correct language to adhere to. Less confusion about what was socially acceptable or not. Longing for the past is such a powerful draw that many conservative-minded folks in western society have been leaning into regressive policies, turning back the dial on hard-won rights for women, the environment, the oppressed. Indeed, this longing has translated for some into the “trad wife” phenomenon, covered in depth by Anne Helen Petersen, Sara Petersen, and Jo Piazza. If you are new to this made-for-social media trope, it is essentially a bunch of white cis-het married ladies who believe that women should embody the role of a traditional 1950s housewife, and primarily occupy themselves with child-rearing, cooking, cleaning, and wearing aprons. They are the right-wing response to feminism and “girl bossing.”

I’ll be exploring the trad wife movement, and what I think is missing in the conversations surrounding it, in an upcoming newsletter. But for today, it’s enough to acknowledge that it exists as a function of the patriarchy. These “trad wives,” women who lean hard into traditional subservient roles and actively advocate against basic feminist principles (i.e., all genders have equal rights and opportunities), are protecting the systems of oppression and war. These systems have been built and solidified over millennia, and are an inevitable result of the patriarchal structures that have dominated human society. 

I want to be clear — I am not blaming trad wives for war! Far from it. I embody many outward similarities to them, after all. I share content across multiple platforms that glorifies cooking and home tending, gardening and slower living. It is easy to see the lure of losing myself to these traditional tasks, and deferring to the men in my lives to make sense of the wider world for me.

But where anti-feminists choose to bury their head in the sand, I lean into my responsibility as a mother to try to understand the world in order to make a better one for my children. The patriarchy will not protect my daughter, nor will it save my son. This world will try to turn my children into fodder for… For what? For an unjust society built on the oppression of people of color, women, animals, the very earth itself?

This is it. The through line that connects the destruction of our planet to book banning in schools, to predators hunting young girls on the internet and bombing of innocent civilians. 

The problem is not Hamas. The problem is not the Israeli government, or the tyrants of Iran. It’s not Putin, or Trump, or even Joe Biden. The problem is not the Wall Street billionaires or our founding fathers. It’s not Stalin or Caligula. 

THE PROBLEM IS MEN. 

The world that they have created — the governments and executive boards and hierarchical societies that value power and winning over life and equality — these structures that have been enshrined as the only way human life can be organized. They have been created by men. They are run by men. They all share the same corruptibility. They all share the same result: suffering and the destruction of life.

I want you to imagine with me, a world where blatant killing of children and raping of women simply does not exist. Children are free to express themselves for who they are, and every human has access to a warm meal, comfortable clothes, and a safe home. There is no poaching of endangered animals. There is no dumping of poisonous chemicals into the rivers. There are no crimes of necessity, because everyone’s basic needs are generously met. The sick or elderly are treated with gentleness and care, as we put our financial resources towards ensuring that every human is worthy of dignity. 

Do you think this world is utterly unattainable? Does this sound like a lovely pipe dream that could never be actualized? I used to agree with you. I thought there was no point in dreaming and imagining these things because humans could never live so freely, because it’s just not in human nature to be gentle and kind and compassionate. 

We are wrong. We as humans are capable of so much more, but we have never been allowed to flourish. We have been kept under the boot of patriarchy, the boot of men who think they know better. 

A world like this is possible — but not as long as the men are in charge. Imagine if the US Congress was made up entirely of mothers — do you truly think healthcare and education wouldn’t become fully funded damn near overnight? Do you think cancer-causing chemicals would routinely find their way into the watershed if women made up the executive boards of the chemical manufacturers? Do you think girls would fear reporting their abuse by church elders if the police force was made up of 86 percent women instead of 86 percent men? And what if the fucking church elders were actually women?!  

As a mother, I feel the horror of every mother who loses a child to war or rape or wanton destruction. I feel their cries reverberate through my bones, rattling around in my chest until I feel like it will cave in. I cannot imagine simultaneously being a mother and a political leader who pushes the button on that bomb that will destroy other mothers’ children. I am sure there are some women who might do that, but I believe those women would still be acting from their patriarchal indoctrination, not from their core soul as women. 

The systems of oppression that have been built by men surround us, and it is only when we tear them all down that we will fully comprehend what is possible. Give us a few generations of women holding all the power and see what we can’t solve. 

Trad wives confuse the power of their womanhood with feminine values dictated to them by the patriarchy. Feminists sometimes confuse the power of their womanhood with a rejection of traditional “feminine” values of caregiving and kindness in order to scrabble up the walls of power built by men. We must see that this paradigm is a pure concoction of the patriarchy, and thus, has no place in the society we must create. Our children’s survival, indeed the very survival of our planet, demands that we reject patriarchy in every single form. 

The answer is, and always has been, this: 

The matriarchy must rise. 

The day will dawn again tomorrow, and we must have the difficult conversations and bridge the divisions that have been sown by men. We must stop squabbling. We must stop arguing about stay-at-home mothers and working mothers and Republican vs. Democrat. We must reject violence in every form. We must find a new way by returning to the roots of our ancestors. We seek the wisdom of our greatest grandmothers to forge a new world. 

The matriarchy must rise. 

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