Calling all Whale Pod Women: Imagining a network of fierce matriarchs
Brave enough to be culture-changers
Listen to me read the post…
I’ve been thinking a lot about whales lately. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about killer whales (or orcas).
Orcas and humans are among the only mammals that go through menopause. Female orcas can live for as many as sixty years beyond their childbearing years, evolving from reproducing mothers to pod leaders in their matrilineal societies.
Researchers surmise that menopause evolved among orcas to “reduce reproductive competition between older orcas and their daughters”. If I were to rewrite the articles I’ve read on the subject though, I would change the language from “avoiding competition” to “promoting cooperation”. (Especially when studying matriarchal cultures, can we drop the patriarchal framing?)
Calves of older females die at a higher rate, so the matriarchs put their energy into supporting, protecting and teaching their children and grandchildren and leading the entire pod rather than continuing to spend their energy on reproduction. Studies of resident orcas in the Pacific Northwest (where I live) found that calves with a living grandmother are significantly more likely to survive, particularly during tough times.
Long beyond their childbearing years, female orcas are crucial to the strength and survival of their pods. They are the memory-keepers and teachers, knowing where the best hunting grounds are and how best to survive predators. It’s not just their grandchildren who benefit from their longevity; it’s their direct offspring. Researchers have found that momma’s boys — full-grown adult males who generally stay with their moms for life — have an increased risk of death if their mother dies.
The first pod of orcas that I encountered in the wild was a family of four – two males and two females. The best guess is that this pod consists of three generations of whales – a grandmother, a mother and two sons (though the females may also be sisters). The oldest female is believed to have been born before 1955 and the second before 1965. The sons were likely born in 1995 and 2001.
I met the whales the day after I’d dropped off my youngest daughter at university (a couple of thousand kilometres from where I then lived), and, as I wrote in this post, I felt the ache of jealousy that the whales got to stay together as long as they were alive.
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I’ve been entertaining a thought experiment lately, wondering what we can learn from our orca kin about the importance of matriarchs in society. Isn’t it true, in our human societies as in theirs, that all of us benefit when matriarchs continue to offer guidance and wisdom, that children benefit from having grandmothers, and that sons make smarter, more life-sustaining choices under the tutelage and protection of wise mothers?
In my last post, I wrote about the importance of elders, and in this one, I want to say more about the specific role I think elder women need to play in the world. (Yes, much of this is also true for elder men, but this post is mostly for the women and non-binary folks who have faced a very particular erasure in our youth-obsessed patriarchal culture.)
Women in the second half of our lives, I think it’s time for us to become Whale Pod Women. We are far from irrelevant. In fact, we may be the hope of the future.
Let us learn from our orca sisters how to guide our societies in reviving kinship ways, prioritizing the protection of the young, and living in symbiotic relationships with our natural environments.
A Whale Pod Woman is someone who:
has evolved beyond the childbearing stage of life (whether or not you ever birthed or raised children);
knows her worth outside of the value she’s been assigned by capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, etc.;
no longer has a lot of fucks to give about what people think of her and whether they think she’s breaking the rules of polite society;
is fierce in her defence of children and anyone marginalized by the culture;
believes in the power of love and kinship; and
is brave enough to be a culture-changer.
In my imagination, we create a society of Whale Pod Woman – perhaps an international underground network with pods all over the world, ready to respond to the whale call when someone is in distress or justice needs to be served, ready to use echolocation to find each other across the miles. We help, we protect, we teach, and we bring fierce love to any of our kinfolk who need it. We hold people accountable when their actions harm people or the planet. We also continue to create and lead and do badass things because we believe in our capacity to change the world.
Here are some examples of Whale Pod Women activities:
Gathering around any queer youth who are being bullied or whose rights are being taken away and feeding them, loving them, and then getting fierce in their protection.
Showing up at press conferences and court cases wherever survivors of predators like Epstein, Weinstein, Nygard, etc. need to speak, and making a circle of protection around them (like bison or elephants do for their young or vulnerable).
Sending pods to the doorsteps of all the young men becoming influencers in the manosphere and insisting that they answer to the pod any time they post online.
Camping out in boardrooms, court rooms, and government offices – wherever policies are being formed that are harmful to the earth. (And also running for office to change those policies.)
Leading and mentoring young people into ethical, compassionate, grounded humans and leaders.
Bringing more art, stories, poetry and music into the world to help us all believe in possibilities.
What I’m imagining is not brand new – we have lots of models for it. It’s what many have done in Minneapolis in recent months, as they protect their neighbours from ICE. It’s what the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace did when they rose in resistance against their country’s war. It’s what the Gulabi Gang (Pink Saris) did when they brought their own brand of justice to the streets of Uttar Pradesh, India, combating violence against women. It’s what the women of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers have done to bring wisdom to the world.
We don’t have to reinvent the wheel to become the Whale Pod Women – we just have to be willing to step into powerful, matriarchal roles, and stop complying with the cultural norms that keep us small, compliant, and irrelevant. We have to believe that we, like Killer Whale Grandmas, are crucial to the survival of our species. And we have to dare to claim our places as leaders, guides, teachers, artists and community builders.
We swim at dawn.
p.s. Need a place to hone your skills as a Whale Pod Women and to grow your network with others around the world? We’ve created such a space in our Become a Grounded Guide program. We had our first call last week (and it was beautiful), but we’ve held the door open for you!
Sources:
https://www.whaleresearch.com/post/killer-whales-give-new-insight-into-the-evolution-of-menopause
I love this so much!!! Thank you for bringing a better imagination into my day. I am here for this.
Fresh tears at 7am - thank you for describing a movement 🙏🏾💛