We invite you to explore the linguistics of Partnership Systems by becoming familiar with the definitions and uses of the following terms.

Riane Eisler’s whole-system research reveals that underlying the great diversity of human culture are two basic models of society: domination systems and Partnership Systems.  The core configurations of these two systems are like the operating system of a culture; they shape all relationships, from families, education and religion to politics, economics, and how we relate to nature.

Domination systems have superior/inferior relationships and view power as “power over”.  Fear and force impose and maintain rankings of man over man, man over woman, parents over children, race over race, religion over religion, all the way to humans over the earth.

Partnership Systems have egalitarian relationships and view power as “power with” and “power to” (creative power). Fear and force are not required to maintain superior/inferior rankings, and relationships are marked by mutual respect, mutual accountability, caring, and awareness of interconnection.

In gender terms, domination systems start with the ranking of one half of humanity over the other, as in patriarchy or matriarchy.  By contrast, in Partnership Systems social relations are primarily based on the principle of linking rather than ranking. Diversity is not equated with either inferiority or superiority. There are hierarchies, but they are not hierarchies of domination but rather empowering hierarchies of actualization where power is used to empower rather than disempower.

We have been taught that domination systems are natural and inevitable. Drawing from multidisciplinary evidence, Eisler’s research shows that for millennia human cultures oriented toward Partnership Systems.

At our current level of technological development, domination systems not only continue to cause severe and unnecessary human suffering, but could end life on Earth for humanity and many other species.  We must shift to Partnership Systems to sustain life on our planet and ensure all people thrive.

Eisler’s work reveals that the opposite of patriarchy is not, as we have been taught, matriarchy. In other words, if men did not dominate women, women must have dominated men. In reality, patriarchy’s opposite is Partnership, a system in which neither gender rules over the other and diversity is valued.

The term “Partnership” describes the values and behaviors that characterize Partnership Systems, including equity, mutual respect, mutual responsibility, and acknowledgement of interconnection. In the context of Partnership System theory, partnership is not a synonym for collaboration or working together. Collaboration occurs in domination systems; terrorists, monopolies, cartels, gangs, and invading armies all collaborate. The word partnership is often also used as an adjective e.g. “a partnership family,” “a partnership economy,” “partnership language,” etc.

Partnerism is a term for the economic system that supports Partnership-oriented societies. First coined by Riane Eisler in The Real Wealth of Nations, the term Partnerism refers to an economic system that, unlike Capitalism and Socialism, recognizes the economic value of care and adequately rewards it in both the market and nonmarket sectors.

Like Capitalism and Socialism, Partnerism is an economic ideology that promotes a set of values, assumptions, and beliefs.  As an ideology, Partnerism promotes and rewards caring for one another, nature, and our collective future.

The Partnerism Movement is a global social movement to mainstream the idea of partnership system design, starting with a caring economics of Partnerism, an economic system that, unlike Capitalism and Socialism, values and rewards caring for one another, nature, and our collective future.

Inspired by Riane Eisler’s work, the movement to mainstream Partnerism as an alternative to Domination economics started in 2019 in response to Eisler’s keynote at the Bretton Woods 75 conference. The Partnerism Movement builds on the Center for Partnership System’s Caring Economy Campaign of 2008 – 2017.

Eisler coined the term “Hierarchies of Actualization” to describe how hierarchies are constructed in Partnership Systems.  In Hierarchies of Actualization, parents, managers, leaders and others in positions of authority seek to uplift and empower others.

In hierarchies of domination, rigid rankings are used to control others and keep people deemed inferior “in their place".

No human society is purely a domination system or a Partnership System; all are somewhere on the spectrum between these two possibilities.  Our task today is to move our institutions, policies, values, and practices further in the direction of Partnership.

Conventional approaches assumed that social change is linear or one-directional (as in the idea of a gradual progression from “barbarism” to “civilization”).  In the last hundred years, new theories contradict this view. Based on evidence from disciplines ranging from archaeology and anthropology to linguistics and DNA studies, a new more accurate picture of human cultures through time and place is emerging.

Riane Eisler’s theory on cultural evolution is sometimes referred to as Cultural Transformation Theory. Drawing from new approaches such as self-organizing systems, non-linear dynamics, and chaos theories, it is based on new understandings of how complex living systems maintain themselves and how they can undergo transformative change during periods of significant disequilibrium.

Technological and social evolution tend to become more complex, but the direction of cultural evolution depends on whether we have a Partnership or a domination oriented social structure.

In other words, new technologies are destabilizing to old patterns, but do not by themselves determine the direction of cultural change.  If you change the cultural values, assumptions, and structures that govern the development and use of technology, you change the impact of those technologies.

Eisler’s research shows that whole-systems change is fundamentally driven by shifts in the configuration of our human-to-human and human-to-Earth relationships, including our families, our language and categories for thinking, as well as our core values, beliefs, and the stories we learn about “human nature.”  This research differs from earlier approaches in significant ways. It looks at the whole of our history, including prehistory, and at the whole of our social systems rather than marginalizing or ignoring the majority of humanity, women and children. It takes into account findings from neuroscience showing that what children experience or observe shapes the development of our human brains, and hence how we think, feel, and act – including how we vote. It is multidisciplinary, and includes new disciplines like gender studies, making it possible to see connections that have been invisible.

How we use language is key in the shift to Partnership Systems. Domination-based words and phrases have been built in to our everyday use of the English language, and influence the way we perceive the world. The examples below are a sampling of the many phrases that can evolve from a context of domination to Partnership in our everyday use of language.

• Kill two birds with one stone → Hatch two birds with one egg
• I really killed it/crushed it/nailed it → I really brought it to life
• I will whip that into shape → I will concentrate on this project
• Bullet points → Itemized list
• Mankind → Humankind

Partnership Language and Vocabulary We invite you to share any other examples of Partnership Language and Vocabulary with us that aren't on the list.  Please let us know here.