Female Morality and Society: Understanding the “Soft Matriarchy” Thesis

The notion of “soft matriarchy” refers to a thesis according to which contemporary Western societies are structured less by values of authority, loyalty, and hierarchy than by compassion, harm prevention, and the protection of people perceived as vulnerable. This view does not describe institutional power as being held predominantly by women. Rather, it proposes that values described as feminine predominate in public life.

This interpretation draws in particular on the work of American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. His moral foundations model helps explain why people may judge the same policy, social rule, or security situation in profoundly different ways. On its own, however, it does not settle the question of which set of values should prevail in a society.

Jonathan Haidt’s five moral foundations

In The Righteous Mind, published in 2012, Jonathan Haidt presents five broad moral intuitions involved in everyday judgments. They are not fixed rules: each individual may combine them and assign them differing levels of importance.

• Care and harm: sensitivity to suffering, the desire to protect the most vulnerable, and the rejection of cruelty.
• Fairness and reciprocity: the idea that a person should be treated fairly and, in return, should respect others.
• Loyalty: attachment to a group, team, family, nation, or any other community of belonging.
• Authority and hierarchy: the value placed on order, established roles, discipline, and respect for institutions.
• Purity and sanctity: avoidance of what is perceived as contaminating, degrading, or morally profane.

A spontaneous reaction to the suffering of a child, an animal, or a victim often illustrates the first foundation. Outrage at a conviction considered unjust is more closely related to fairness. Support for a sports team, respect for the military chain of command, or the importance assigned to certain religious prohibitions, meanwhile, belong to other moral registers.

Compassion, politics, and differences in moral sensitivity

The “soft matriarchy” thesis rests on a political and gendered interpretation of these foundations. It holds that left-wing sensibilities generally place greater weight on care and fairness, while right-wing sensibilities distribute their attention more broadly across all five foundations. In the most radical positions on the right, loyalty, authority, and purity would take on greater importance.

The article also refers to a large study conducted in 67 countries with nearly 340,000 participants, whose findings reportedly indicate that women, on average, attach greater importance to care, as well as to fairness and purity. The largest gap reportedly concerns sensitivity to harm and, by extension, the place of compassion. These average findings do not, however, make it possible to equate every woman or man with a predetermined moral profile.

Within this framework, public health prevention policies, awareness campaigns, calls to reduce risks, and measures protecting against discrimination would be manifestations of a morality focused on reducing suffering. Debates over content warnings, pronouns, workplace inclusion, or the regulation of social interactions can therefore be interpreted as conflicts between the protection of sensitivities and other values, such as freedom of expression, autonomy, or risk-taking.

What does the term “soft matriarchy” mean?

Used polemically, the expression does not refer to an official system in which women directly govern institutions. Its meaning is moral and cultural: it denotes the idea of a society in which compassion has become the dominant principle, sometimes at the expense of firmness, individual responsibility, authority, or the defense of group boundaries.

Supporters of this thesis believe that violence, even when exercised in legitimate self-defense, has become particularly taboo. They also argue that contemporary institutions too often favor prevention, support, and reintegration over punishment or deterrence. They associate this development with the rise of human resources departments, compliance rules, and communication norms intended to avoid offense or discomfort.

This interpretation can be challenged on several grounds. First, the presence of protective or preventive measures does not in itself prove that other values have disappeared. Second, valuing compassion does not necessarily entail rejecting all punishment, authority, or responsibility. Finally, describing values as “feminine” or “masculine” may oversimplify individual, social, and political differences.

The security debate: compassion or firmness?

Security is one of the main arenas for this moral opposition. Advocates of a firmer approach argue that a society protects vulnerable people by concretely limiting the actions of violent individuals. In their view, systematically treating offenders as victims of their environment can lead to neglect of direct victims and the need for collective security.

El Salvador is presented as an example of a policy favoring the imprisonment of gang members over social and prevention programs. The article states that after Nayib Bukele came to power in 2019, the homicide rate reportedly reached 7.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, an 85% decline over four years compared with the level cited for 2018. This account supports the idea that decisive criminal enforcement can restore freedom of movement and everyday security.

Yet this example does not resolve the underlying debate. It brings several objectives into tension: protecting the population, punishing criminal acts, preserving legal safeguards, and preventing the fight against violence from producing abuses of its own. Haidt’s moral foundations chiefly help identify why these priorities are not ranked in the same way by everyone.

A method for identifying moral appeals

The main value of this approach is that it encourages analysis of the emotional and moral mechanisms behind public messages. An advertisement, political speech, advocacy campaign, or media controversy may seek to activate compassion, a sense of injustice, loyalty, respect for authority, or fear of symbolic contamination.

Asking which moral foundation is being appealed to makes it possible to take a step back. This does not mean that an appeal to compassion is necessarily manipulative, nor that authority or loyalty are inherently preferable. A pluralistic society is precisely faced with the need to arbitrate among legitimate but sometimes conflicting values.

The controversy surrounding “soft matriarchy” therefore rests less on a neutral observation than on a moral preference: should reducing suffering be regarded as the central priority, or should a more explicit balance be sought with order, responsibility, freedom, and collective cohesion? Moral foundations theory does not provide a definitive answer; it offers a vocabulary for understanding the disagreements that shape this question.

FAQ

What is “soft matriarchy”?

It is a polemical expression referring to a society supposedly dominated, culturally and morally, by compassion, protection from harm, and prevention rather than by authority, loyalty, or hierarchy.

Does Jonathan Haidt claim that the West is a matriarchy?

Jonathan Haidt’s work concerns moral foundations and their variations across political sensibilities. The label “soft matriarchy” is an ideological interpretation that draws on his model, rather than one of the five moral foundations itself.

Do women and men all share the same moral values?

The article refers to average differences observed in an international study, particularly regarding sensitivity to suffering. These averages do not determine any given person’s values: individual profiles remain diverse.