Mother Theresa wrote, famously: “If we really want peace for the world, let us start by loving one another within our families.”
That sentiment may be cliche, but it is no platitude in a year that has so far been characterized by extreme violence and upheaval, war and enforced famine, performative cruelty and global inequities, and above all, a dramatically changing climate and a corresponding rise in authoritarianism, sweeping away everything else in its path as institutions of democracy fail to hold the line the world over.
A first-of-its kind online conference this week featuring an expert in peace and early development hopes to reframe peace not as a distant ideal but as something that begins in the home, in order to create new ways of looking at the world which can outwit and local and global systems of domination and control.
Dr. Riane Eisler — a Southern California-based expert in partnership cultures and the author of The Chalice and the Blade, which emphasizes that authoritarianism’s intergenerational hold on populations can be interrupted by childhood interventions. The one-day summit, appropriately called Peace Begins at Home, will be held online this Wednesday.
“For too long, we’ve treated violence in the home and violence in the world as separate issues — when in truth, they are deeply connected,” Eisler said.
“The patterns of domination, control, and devaluation that take root in families are the same dynamics we later see played out in our politics, our economies, and even between nations.”
The summit boasts guest speakers as varied as Mursalina Amin, founder and president of Girls Toward Leadership for Afghan girls and women, Sheku Mohamed Gassimu, Jr. of Sierra Leone’s One Village Partners, and University of Madison-Wisconsin neuroscientist and professor Dr. Richard Davidson.
Indigenous journalist Angela Sterritt will serve as master of ceremonies.
According to a UNICEF study, two out of three children the world over regularly experience violence at the hands of caregivers in their homes, which Eisler maintains has ripple effects throughout the lives of those who experience it.
“When children are exposed to harm without care or support, the impacts can echo across their lives and into society at large,” says the Peace Begins at Home website.
“This summit matters because true peace isn’t only about ending war — it’s about reshaping the conditions that allow violence to take hold in any form. It begins with partnership — starting at home.”
Eisler, 94, has lived in Los Angeles most of her life, since her family fled Nazi-controlled Austria in the late 1930s.
Her own early experiences led to her research and body of work on partnership systems versus domination systems, including her book, a seminal and critical examination of global systems of domination and partnership that was first published in 1987.
Eisler went on to serve as president of the Center for Partnership Systems, dedicated to research and education and editor-in-chief of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies, an online peer-reviewed journal at the University of Minnesota inspired by her work.
She has also addressed universities, the U.S. Congress and State Department, the United Nations General Assembly, and more during the course of her influential career.
“If we want a more peaceful world, we must begin by nurturing partnership and care in our most intimate relationships.” Eisler said.
“Recognizing this link between the personal and the political — between how we raise children and how we govern societies — is essential to building a future where peace is not just the absence of war, but the presence of justice and care.”
