Riane Eisler: Nurturing our Humanity
Sandie Sedgbeer: Yes. We’re much happier when we are helping others and engage in selfless acts.
Riane Eisler: And, now finally, science is beginning to look not just at pathology and violence, which I was obsessed with because that’s what’s “important” in domination systems. But looking at love, looking at helpfulness, the studies are very clear as you said, people are happier, and it’s reflected in their brain. Neurochemistry.
Sandra Sedgbeer: I noticed a video on your website. You took part in an interactive Webinar in 2018, “Power with and Power through – How women Lead Differently for a Just and Caring World.” Tell us about that. What does it really look like to do power differently?
Riane Eisler: I’m so glad you brought this up because one of the things people can do by going to the centerforpartnership.org is to listen to some of our old videos. But, to get back to that particular video, in The Chalice and the Blade, the title really is symbolic of two ways of looking at power, isn’t it? The Blade is power over, right? Appropriate for the domination system, the power to control, to dominate, to take life. But there’s also another power. It’s power with and power to, or the Chalice as a power to not only give life but to nurture and to illuminate life. So, just being a woman doesn’t make you a partnership leader; men can be partnership leaders, too.
Nurturing our Humanity, How Domination, Partnerships Shape our Brains, Lives, and Future by Riane Eisler and Douglas P. Fry is published by Oxford University Press.
Connect with Riane Eisler
Riane Eisler is a social systems scientist, cultural historian, and attorney whose research, writing, and speaking has transformed the lives of people worldwide. She is President of the Center for Partnership Studies (CPS) and Editor-in-Chief of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies. A refugee from Nazi Europe as a child, she has addressed the UN General Assembly, the US Department of State and Congressional Briefings, and authored over 500 articles published in outlets including The Christian Science Monitor, Human Rights Quarterly, and International Journal of Women’s Studies. Her book The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future, is an international bestseller. www.rianeeisler.com and www.centerforpartnership.org
