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Riane Tennenhaus Eisler (born July 22, 1931) is an Austrian-born American systems scientist, futurist, attorney, and author who writes about the effect of gender and family politics historically on societies, and vice versa. She is best known for her 1987 book, The Chalice and the Blade, in which she coined the terms “partnership” and “dominator”.^[1][2]

She has written and been interviewed in over 500 articles. Her work is covered in publications ranging from Scientific American, Behavioral Science, Futures, Political Psychology, The Christian Science Monitor, Challenge, and UNESCO Courier to Brain and Mind, Human Rights Quarterly, International Journal of Women’s Studies, and World Encyclopedia of Peace, as well as chapters for books published by trade and university presses (e.g., Cambridge, Stanford, and Oxford University).

Eisler was born in Vienna in 1931 before her family fled from the Nazis in 1939 to Cuba. She and her parents lived in a slum in Havana for seven years, after which they emigrated to the United States, to Miami, New York, and Chicago before finally settling in Los Angeles.^[3]

Eisler has degrees in sociology and law from the University of California. She is an attorney, legal scholar, systems scientist, and author. She has published thirteen books, including one memoir, The Gate, published in 2000. Her first book, published in 1977, was Dissolution: No-Fault Divorce, Marriage, and the Future of Women. Her second book, published in 1979, was on the Equal Rights Amendment.^[4]

Drawing on ten years of multidisciplinary research, in her third book The Chalice and the Blade (originally published in 1987) she coined the terms “partnership” and “dominator” to describe two underlying forms of society. These forms transcend conventional social categories like right/left, religious/secular, Eastern/Western, capitalist/socialist, etc.

Partnership-oriented societies are characterized by peace, equity, gender equality, sustainability, and caring. Dominator-oriented societies are characterized by sexism and other forms of in-group versus out-group rankings such as racism and anti-Semitism, as well as chronic war, ecological destruction, and unsustainability.

Eisler’s research references the work of archaeologists Marija Gimbutas and Ian Hodder, anthropologists Douglas Fry, and many others. It shows that for millennia most human societies were built on a partnership-oriented structure. This meant society supported the human capacity to give, nurture, and sustain life. Caregiving was held in the highest regard. Shared responsibility and caring were the gold standard. According to archaeology, the fall into domination occurred between five and ten thousand years ago. This is a drop in the evolutionary bucket, as Eisler notes.^[5][6]

The Chalice and the Blade has sold over 500,000 copies and been translated into around 30 languages.^[7]

Eisler’s research indicates that the switch from partnership to domination led to a shift from in-group versus out-group attitudes. Group hierarchy and relationships were now based on factors such as sex, race, and other differences. Violence was ultimately the basis for maintaining these hierarchies, and was built into the system. The “conquest of nature,” massive inequality, and devaluing the work of caring for people started to become common practice. The work of caring for our natural life-support systems was also undervalued, taken for granted, and removed from the money economy.

Domination systems normalize violence – from abusive authoritarian families, to the promotion of violence in modern politics, to destructive warfare between nations. Violence became a means to maintain power-over others as a social norm.^[8]

Eisler is currently the editor-in-chief of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is a keynote speaker at conferences worldwide. She also heads the Center for Partnership Systems dedicated to promoting partnership-oriented research.

In 1987, in partnership with her late husband David Elliot Loye, Eisler founded The Center for Partnership Studies, which was later renamed The Center for Partnership Systems. The organization is “dedicated to research, education, and building tools to construct economic and social systems that support human beings and the planet that sustains us.”^[9]

As of 2024, the Center acts as a digital hub of resources, tools, connections, and community focused on partnership-oriented social change.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who uses the title “first partner of California”, wrote of Eisler’s book Nurturing Our Humanity “In a world that feels ever more dangerous, divided, and out of balance, Nurturing Our Humanity outlines the roadmap for a world that leads with partnership – where empathy, care, and community are valued above all, and each can fulfill our full human potential.” ^[10]

Ashley Montagu called Eisler’s book The Chalice and the Blade “The most important book since Darwin’s Origin of Species.”^[11]

Gloria Steinem called her book Sacred Pleasure “Eisler’s most stunning, far-reaching, and practical gift – both to readers and to a world that must change or perish.” ^[12]

The children’s troubadour Raffi, called Eisler’s book on education, Tomorrow’s Children “a pathway toward a child-honoring society.”

Marianne Williamson called Eisler’s book The Power of Partnership “Stunning…the map to a world that works for all of us.” ^[13]

Philosopher Terence McKenna referenced Eisler’s work throughout his writings and talks, including in The Archaic Revival. In 1988, Eisler and McKenna gave a talk entitled Man And Woman At The End Of History together in Ojai CA, Mill Valley.^[14]

Eisler’s term dominator culture has been used by writers ranging from bell hooks to Tao Lin.^[15][16]

Her work is taught in high schools, universities, and corporate learning environments, and has influenced people worldwide.

Among Eisler’s many awards are:

• 2022 Centers for Compassion, Humanitarian Award
• Honorary member, Club of Budapest (other honorary members include Mikhail Gorbachev)
• 2017 Visionary Award, Feminist Press
• 2014 Pioneer Award, Institute for Women’s Leadership
• 2009 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (earlier awarded to the Dalai Lama)
• 2008 Honorary Ph.D. degree, Saybrook Institute
• 2008 Included in the award-winning Great Peacemakers book and online course
• 2005 Honorary Ph.D. degree, Case Western Reserve University
• 2000 Ethics Award, Foundation for Ethics and Meaning
• 1996 Humanist Pioneer Award^[17]
• 1996 Alice Paul ERA Education Award
• 1992 Shaler Adams Foundation award for work on Women’s Rights as Human Rights
• 1990 National Women’s Conference Committee Torchbearer’s Award
• 1987 Congressional Award for Outstanding Contribution
• Monterey Distinguished Community Leader
• Phi Beta Kappa

• 1977 — Dissolution: No-Fault Divorce, Marriage, and the Future of Women. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 1583480293
• 1979 — The Equal Rights Handbook: What ERA Means to Your Life, Your Rights, and the Future. Avon. ISBN 1583480250
• 1987 – The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0062502891
• 1990 — The Partnership Way: New Tools for Living and Learning, Healing Our Families, and Our World. San Francisco: Harper. ISBN 0062502905
• 1995 – Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body. San Francisco: Harper. ISBN 0062502832
• 2000 — Tomorrow’s Children: A Blueprint for Partnership Education in the 21st Century. Boulder: Westview Press. ISBC 0813390400
• 2000 — The Gate. iUniverse. ISBN 0595001858
• 2002 — The Power of Partnership: Seven Relationships that Will Change Your Life. New World Library. ISBN 1577311787
• 2007 — The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economy. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. ISBN 1576753883
• 2019 — Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future. with Douglas P. Fry. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0190935723
• 2023 – Fog Busters: Eyes of Care, a children’s’ story with Victoria Friedman. ISBN 1958921556

• Agata Popęda, “So Far Ahead: Thinker Riane Eisler is finally right on time”, Monterey County Weekly, May 14–20, 2026, pp. 18–20, 22. Writes Popęda: “Riane Eisler is a social systems scientist, cultural historian, futurist and, at 94, one of the most consequential thinkers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. … The Chalice and the Blade, her 1987 breakthrough [book], took 10 years to write and proposed something that sounded almost heretical – that human history is not the inevitable march of male domination, that for millenia our ancestors organized themselves around partnership rather than ranking, and that a more peaceful alternative isn’t utopian, but [is] our recoverable past and likely future.” [p. 19] Popęda quotes Eisler from her interview with the thinker: “Gender is in flux, because we don’t know how much is innate and how much is acquired. But we see women taking on leadership, and we know that men can take on caring. … The widening gap between haves and have-nots is not sustainable. … We should be working on a smooth transition from domination to partnership, because at our level of technology, domination is taking us to an evolutionary dead end. It’s not just climate change. It’s technologies of destruction, like nuclear bombs, like technological warfare. We should, in our self-interest, work on a smoother transition. At the very least, we should be ready with a different economic infrastructure.” (p. 22.)

• Official website
• Center for Partnership Systems