Matriarchal Studies

Heide Göttner-Abendroth (born February 8, 1941 in Langewiesen, Germany) is a German feminist advocating Matriarchy Studies (also Modern Matriarchal Studies), focusing on the study of matriarchal or matrilineal societies.

Göttner-Abendroth was born during World War II, and at the age of 12 moved with her parents from East Germany to West Germany. She has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Munich (1973). She became active in second-wave feminism from 1976 and came to be considered one of the pioneers of women's studies in West Germany.

Göttner-Abendroth worked as a Reader in philosophy at Munich University in the 1970s, but she quit and became an independent scholar, founding the International Academy for Modern Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality (HAGIA) in 1986. She received a scholarship from the University of Bremen in 1992. Her own account of the lack of acceptance of her Matriarchal Studies in mainstream academia was published as Die Diskriminierung der Matriarchatsforschung in 2003.

Göttner-Abendroth's "International Academy for Modern Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality" (HAGIA) was founded in 1986. It aims to combine the "intellectual, political, artistic, and spiritual" in its events.

Modern Matriarchal Studies stands in the tradition of 1970s second wave feminism, pioneered by Merlin Stone's When God Was a Woman. Feminist theories of matriarchy remained current throughout the 1970s, and in German scholarship during the 1980s. Göttner-Abendroth has continued to publish on the topic into the 2000s, and has organized two World Congresses on Matriarchal Studies, in 2003 and 2005.

...
Wikipedia