I do not agree with BH’s apparent conviction that a feminism based on tribalism has no relevance to rewilders and no place among the schools of feminist thought. There are some key critiques of civilization that tribalism-based feminism offers, that mainstream strains of feminism seem to touch on almost not at all.
A foundational principle of all civilization is the separation of the domain of family from the “real world,” and the separation of families (and women) from each other. The domain of family is secondary and marginalized; what happens within the family has little effect on the important domain of the “outside world,” and each family is in its own little box pursuing its own fortunes, separated and competing from other families. (This is one of the forces of civilization that causes population growth.) So each home-and-family box in effect becomes a prison, and a person (usually a woman) whose life is spent inside the home-and-family box is isolated, often confined to some degree, treated as of lesser value, and rendered powerless with regard to the outside world.
In civilization, family is secondary, and separated from the business of “real life,” because the main purpose that family serves in civilization is to create lineages for the inheritance of private property. Family itself becomes a kind of private property, owned by a man.
In a tribal society, however, family is not something secondary and separate from the “important real life” business of society. In a tribe, family IS society, because the society itself is an extended family and deals with itself as a family. Everyone in the community is related in some way (and so are all the other beings who support life). (Kinship does not depend on blood relation – kinship is a human instinct.) And this is why tribal societies can work without mechanisms of coercion (police, governments, etc).
All successful anarchist, egalitarian societies have been kinship based societies. There have been no successful anarchist experiments not based on this principle.
In a tribal society, the center is the children and the generations to come. The society is organized around a sense of an axis of continuity from the ancestors to the unborn ones.
In tribal societies, yes, there is a role called Mother. In the larger community of life, the Earth is the Mother, and in a tribal society, the community of mothers collectively plays the same role for the community as Mother Earth does in the community of life.
One need not be biologically female, nor does one need to biologically bear a child to share the role of Mother for the coming generation. (Collective mothering helps keep birth rates down – it is one of the ignored reasons for low birth rates among hunter-gatherers.) Nor does being biologically female oblige one to be part of the community of Mothers.
These roles are Kinship roles. Kinship roles in tribal society are something like Jungian archetypes – like archetypes of Mother, Father, Grandmother, Grandfather, Nephew, Cousin, Wife, Husband, etc. But the spirits have ways of keeping the energies alive and changing, not hardened and automatic: the Trickster, who brings the unexpected and things that don’t turn out as you intended; the Clown, who caricatures, and the Heyoka, who does things in reverse; and the Shaman, who lives half in the spirit world and may be compelled by the spirits to do things in very uncustomary ways.
But the “roles” are not gender roles (like the ones civilization dictates) as much as they are kinship roles expressing relationship to one another. Brother’s relationship to Sister is not the same as Grandfather’s relationship to Grandson or Wife’s to Husband.
But Mother is the only indispensable kinship role. Mother is the kinship role upon which the survival of the tribe depends, the axis of the coming generations. So Mother is the one kinship role common to all tribal societies, and is usually central to the tribal community, the way Mother Earth is central to the community of life.
Kinship can be very informally defined, as it is usually in societies of small nomadic bands of up to a couple dozen people. Just a strong, generalized sense of being kin (and a general sense of who was too close relationship to marry) can be enough in a very small band. The entire community can play the essential role of Mother to the next generation.
To respond again to your question, BH, “gender roles” are not necessary to rewilding. What is essential to rewilding and retribalizing is that the walls that separate individual families each in their own little civilized boxes break down, that kinship bonds interconnect families, and that caring for the next generation become communal and tribal and the central focus of the community – which, as among hunter-gatherers, ensures lower birthrates, better care, and much less burden on adult caregivers, while giving the children many siblings to play with, and much more freedom and space to play because everyone is keeping an eye out for them, and because, as tribal children, they also know how to keep an eye out for each other.
You are never going to create tribes by just getting together with your friends and saying “Let’s make a tribe.” A tribe might be born, though, if you and your rewilding friends are struggling together and then, somehow, some parentless children fall into your care, and suddenly you and your rewilding friends have a reason to live beyond just preserving your individual survival: suddenly you are all bonded together with the common purpose of making good lives for these children in this precarious world.
THAT is when a tribe would be born.
Imagine a tribe of say, ten adult rewilders tribally raising four children.
Imagine how much the focus would change from “how’m I gonna survive” (a mentality which I think is a great impediment to true rewilding) when the group shares a common purpose of ensuring the survival and well-being of this next generation with whose lives you are entrusted.
It’s not “gender roles” that is essential for retribalizing. It is kinship and the central focus on the next generation.
Edit: I recently saw a video in which Onondaga chief Oren Lyons told about a meeting he had with a conference of business executives. One said that he would like to “go green” but as a CEO he had to show the highest profit to shareholders or he would be replaced. Oren Lyons asked: “Are you married?” The man said yes. “Do you have children?” Yes. “Do you have grandchildren?” Yes. “When do you stop being a CEO and start being a grandfather?” The man was speechless at this question. This one exchange summarizes perfectly the difference between the position of the family in civilization and in a tribe.