Why Drumming Disrupts the Patriarchy: Reclaiming the Ancient Medicine They Made Us Forget

The first time I held a drum, I felt something ancient in my body. A recognition. Something that said: you know this.

And I did, or rather, my body did. My hands knew the rhythm before my mind. My heart knew this was medicine before I had language for why.

This was so strong that it led me to acquire my own drum soon after. Drumming grew in my work and life, leading to today: I drum daily on my own, weekly with two other women, monthly in my drum circle, and every 6 weeks in the wheel of the year ceremony (and many other times in between). It has taken such an important role in my life, my path and my growth that I have written a book about it, and that I’m actively working to bring more women to the drum 

But what I didn’t know then was that my drum was dangerous. That the act of picking it up was an act of rebellion. That by drumming, I was reclaiming something that had been deliberately taken from women for centuries.

The patriarchy didn’t silence our drums by accident.

“The many women I have drummed for during pregnancies, birth and postpartum, during difficult life transitions, loss, trauma, grief, illness, accidents, changes of circumstances, end of relationships and more, have told me that the drum spoke to something deep within them, something they recognised: a remembering. They spoke of feeling like they were inside of a temple, of feeling their ancestors around them, of being reminded of their strength, of receiving powerful messages of guidance from within, including messages from goddesses and the divine feminine.” Sophie Messager

The Drums That Went Quiet

For thousands of years, women drummed.

We drummed women through birth, our rhythms matching the contractions, guiding them into altered states where their bodies knew exactly what to do. We drummed for the dying, easing their passage with beats that said you are not alone. We drummed for healing, for ceremony, for grief, for celebration, for the turning of seasons and the marking of life’s thresholds.

The drum was our medicine. Our connection to the sacred and to each other.

Then the drums went quiet.

In matriarchal societies, priestresses of the goddess used the drum to enter alerted states and communicate with the spirit world. The rise of patriarchy saw spiritual roles move to men, and with this, objects of power like the drum were removed. When the church consolidated its power throughout Europe, it called drumming witchcraft and heathenism. When colonisers wanted to control indigenous peoples, they banned the practice of traditional religions and drumming. When birth moved from home to hospital, natural rhythms were replaced with machines and protocols.

This wasn’t cultural evolution. This was systematic suppression.

Because those in power understood something crucial: women with drums are dangerous.

“As we drum, we don’t just think differently – we experience the world differently. This altered state of being opens doorways to new perspectives, allowing us to imagine and embody alternatives to the limiting narratives that have been unconsciously programmed into us. In essence, drumming doesn’t just challenge the system – it transports us beyond it, offering an experience of what true autonomy and connection feel like.” Sophie Messager

Why Your Drum Threatens the System

The patriarchy has a vested interest in keeping you in your head.

Overthinking. Analyzing. Doubting yourself. Seeking external validation. Second-guessing your intuition. Being “reasonable.” Staying small. Questioning whether you’re “too much” or “too loud” or “too intense”.

When you’re trapped in mental loops, comparing yourself to others, wondering if you’re good enough, waiting for permission, you’re manageable. Controllable. Easy to market to, easy to exploit, easy to keep in line.

But drumming short-circuits all of that.

Within minutes of drumming, your brainwaves shift from beta (the thinking, analysing state) to alpha and theta (embodied, intuitive, present). You literally cannot overthink while drumming. Your thinking mind has to surrender to rhythm, to body, to the present moment.

And in that space, that drumming space where thinking stops and being begins, you access something the patriarchy desperately doesn’t want you to find:

Your own knowing.

The Wisdom They Don’t Want You to Access

Your body holds truths that the systems of power have spent centuries trying to make you forget:

Your intuition. That deep, bone-level knowing that they dismiss as “irrational” or “emotional.” The knowing that tells you when something is wrong, when someone is lying, when you need to leave, when you need to stay. Drumming connects you directly to this wisdom.

Your rage. The righteous anger at injustice, at being diminished, at having your voice taken, at watching other women suffer. You’ve been taught that anger makes you “difficult” or “hysterical.” But your rage is information. It’s power. And drumming lets it move through you instead of hurting you.

Your power. Not power over others, but power as life force, as creative energy, as sovereignty over your own body and choices. The power to take up space, to be heard, to say no. Drumming reconnects you to the power that you’ve been taught to fear in yourself.

Your boundaries. The “no” you’re supposed to soften, explain, apologise for. The needs you’re taught to suppress. The space you’re told not to take. The fawning. Drumming teaches your nervous system that you can be loud, take up space, make demands on the world, and survive.

This is why they took our drums. Because women who are connected to their intuition, their rage, their power, and their boundaries cannot be controlled.

“One of the most powerful aspects of drumming and the reason people have done it since the beginning of being human is that it changes people’s consciousness. Through rhythmic repetition of ritual sounds, the body, the brain and the nervous system are energized and transformed.” Layne Redmond

The Threat of Women in Circle

But there’s something even more dangerous than a woman with a drum.

It’s a group of women drumming together.

The patriarchy’s greatest tool is isolation. Keep women separate. Keep them competing with each other. Keep them comparing themselves. Keep them too busy, too tired, too convinced they’re alone in their struggles.

Because when women come together, when we sit in circle, when we drum with each other, something magical happens.

Our brains synchronise. Our breaths synchronise. Our rhythms entrain to each other. We remember, viscerally, that we are social animals. That we are stronger together. That we are not crazy, not alone, not too much.

We remember what power feels like when it’s shared rather than hoarded.

And we become ungovernable.

This is why women’s circles were suppressed. Why gatherings were made suspicious. Why female friendship has been trivialised as “drama” or dismissed as “just chatting.” Why we were made to believe that women are bitchy and not to be trusted.

Because synchronised women, women who trust each other, support each other, drum together, cannot be controlled by systems that require our disconnection and our compliance.

The Fear That Lives in Your Bones

I’m sure many of you feel it when you think about drumming, because I hear almost every women I speak to about drumming say this. The anxiety, that voice that whispers you’re not good enough, you’ll look foolish, you’ll be too loud, someone will be angry.

This fear isn’t yours alone. It’s ancestral.

It lives in your bones because it lived in your grandmother’s bones, and her grandmother’s before her. It’s the fear of the woman who was called a witch and lost everything. The fear of the woman whose drums were confiscated and burned. The fear of the enslaved woman who was beaten for making rhythm. 

This fear was taught to us through violence, through shaming, through punishment. And even though you may never have been directly persecuted for drumming, your body remembers. Your nervous system carries the imprint of what happened to the women who came before you.

And today? The persecution is more subtle, but it’s still there. It’s in the eye roll when you mention spiritual practices. The “that’s a bit woo-woo, isn’t it?” The suggestion that you should focus on “real” things, that you’re not being a “good girl”, that you’re being ridiculous, too much, taking up too much space, making too much noise.

It’s in the way we’ve learned to apologise before we speak. To lower our voices in meetings. To second-guess our knowing. To ask permission before we take up room. To shrink to make others comfortable.

The fear of drumming isn’t about the drum at all. It’s about the deeper terror of being seen, being heard, being powerful, and facing the consequences that powerful women have always faced. And are still facing.

But something is different now: the fear isn’t ours to carry anymore. We can acknowledge it – honour it as evidence of what our foremothers survived, and then choose differently. We can pick up the drum with trembling hands and drum anyway. Not because we’re fearless, but because we’re done letting ancient persecution dictate our present silence.

I can see it everywhere in how many women are being called back to the drum.

“The rhythmic pattern of the mother’s heartbeat is linked to feeling safe, nourished, and calm.  Rhythm is regulating. Patterned, repetitive rhythms—drumming, dancing, or swaying—are central to healing rituals across all cultures. “ Dr Bruce Perry

You Don’t Need Permission

Here’s what the patriarchy taught you about drumming (and most things):

You need to be “musical.” You need training. You need to be “good at it.” You need expensive equipment. You need a teacher’s approval. You need to earn the right.

All of this is designed to keep you doubting yourself. To keep you from starting. To keep you seeking external validation instead of trusting your own heart, your own rhythm, your own voice.

But you don’t need any of that.

You need a drum. You need five minutes. You need the willingness to make sound, to take up space, to let your hands remember what your mind forgot.

That’s it.

No one can give you permission to drum, and no one can take it away. The drum doesn’t care if you’re “musical.” Your nervous system doesn’t check your training before it responds to rhythm.

Drumming signals safety to your nervous system because this is something humans have done since times immemorial, together, to release trauma and connect with each other.

Every time you pick up a drum, you are voting with your body for a different way of being. You are saying: I claim space. I claim voice. I claim the right to be loud, to be heard, to take up sonic real estate in the world.

“This physiology (the polyvagal nervous system) is not impacted through traditional ‘talk-based’ therapies […] non-verbal therapies using rhythm, movement, entrainment are more often able to restore equilibrium. […] Many indigenous rituals employ drumming to stimulate the vagal brake”. Simon Faulkner.

Drumming as Protest

Make no mistake: your drumming is political. Every beat says: I will not be silenced.

Every time you drum, you reclaim:

• Space – refusing to stay small and quiet
• Time – prioritising your practice over productivity
• Voice – being heard, not just seen
• Body – trusting its wisdom over external authorities
• Lineage – connecting to the women who drummed before you
• Community – choosing connection over competition

This is why the establishment will try to dismiss your drumming as frivolous, as “just a hobby.” They’ll tell you it’s new age nonsense, hippy bullshit stuff. They’ll suggest you’re being “too loud” or “disturbing the peace.”

Good. Disturb the peace.

The peace you’re being asked to keep is the peace of your own oppression.

What Happens When We Remember

I think about what the world would look like if women remembered how to drum.

If we taught our daughters to pick up drums instead of dimming their voices. If we gathered in circles instead of competing for scraps. If we trusted the wisdom of our bodies instead of outsourcing our knowing to experts and algorithms.

If we let ourselves be as loud as we actually are.

The systems that profit from our doubt, our silence, our smallness would crumble. Because those systems require our compliance. They need us believing we’re not enough, that we need fixing, that we should wait for permission.

Drumming teaches the opposite. It teaches: you are enough. Your body knows. You don’t need permission. You are powerful. You are not alone.

This is remembering, not learning. Not acquiring a new skill or becoming someone different. Just remembering what they made you forget:

You are powerful. You are wise. You have a voice. You deserve to be heard.

Pick Up Your Drum

So here’s my invitation: pick up your drum.

Your ancestors are waiting. The women who drummed for birth and death and healing and ceremony – they’re waiting for you to remember. Your body is waiting to drop out of overthinking and into knowing. Your voice is waiting to be heard.

The patriarchy will tell you it’s silly, that you’re not musical, that it’s just a trend, that you should be quieter, smaller, more reasonable.

Drum anyway.

Because every woman who picks up a drum is a threat to systems that require our silence.

Every woman who drums is a reminder that we are powerful, connected, and ungovernable when we remember who we are.

Every woman who drums is reclaiming what was taken, speaking what was silenced, and becoming what they feared most:

Free.

“What we need most at this moment in time, to heal ourselves and to heal the earth, is to support women to stand in their true power. The power that resides within us, in our ability to trust ourselves and know what’s right for us, rather than abdicating knowledge and power over to the system. What we need is to support a feminine way of accessing knowledge… Drumming offers a way back in through the layers of parenting, education and societal conditioning that have eroded our self-knowing. Reclaiming this knowing is critically needed in a culture that conditions women from childhood to seek truth outside rather than within.” Sophie Messager

Join Me: Drumming as Medicine

If this stirred something in you, if you felt that ancient recognition, that feeling of you know this, I invite you to join me for Drumming as Medicine: a 4-week live online women’s circle starting October 29th.

This isn’t about becoming a drummer. It’s about reclaiming a practice that regulates your nervous system, processes stuck emotions, and reconnects you to your inner wisdom, all in just a few minutes a day.

In this circle, you’ll:

• Learn drum microdosing: a simple 5-minute daily practice that creates real shifts
• Experience guided drumming journeys in community
• Move through resistance with support (not alone)
• Build a sustainable practice with accountability
• Connect with women who understand

What’s included:

• 4 live weekly circle calls on Zoom (Wednesdays 4pm GMT)
• Lifetime access to all recordings and extra course materials in my online course platform
• Private Facebook community for ongoing support
• Drum microdosing practice guide
• Exclusive drum journeys

Early bird pricing ends October 22nd: £145 (regular price £195)

You don’t need to be musical. You just need to be willing to remember.

[Register for Drumming as Medicine]

The drum is calling. Your sisters are waiting. Let’s reclaim our power together.