9 "What Ifs..." That Would Change Everything

3. What If Women Were In Charge?

Don't worry, you can read this entry without burning your bra. Historically speaking, it is generally the rule that the blokes are in charge. However, some anthropologists have begun to wonder what the world would look like, had it grown up under a matriarchy. Whilst we can only speculate how it would world on a global scale, it's possible to glimpse this parallel world by looking at the handful of societies around the world that are matriarchies.

Interestingly, often in matriarchal and matrilineal societies, marriage is not institutionalised, such as with the Mouso of China, and if it happens at all, divorce is not the taboo subject that it has been historically. A possible reason for this could be that, because women are the ones having the babies, reproductive rights do not need to be controlled so tightly as they already belong to the "dominant" gender. Speaking of reproduction, the Aka, a nomadic people from central Africa, are considered to be the best fathers in the world.

Fathers here are thought to engage with their children up to five times as much as in other societies and will even offer their nipple to soothe an infant without a second thought. Male and female roles in Aka society are virtually interchangeable, something that was thought to be common in many hunter-gatherer societies throughout history. It is usually only with the invention of agriculture, and therefore the opportunity to accumulate wealth and status, that stricter, male-dominated hierarchies come into play.

These examples are all pretty egalitarian so far, but what about a society in which the women actually rule? In Meghalaya, India, the women hold all the power in a virtually identical way to men in other societies. Family name and property is passed down the female line, women control the finances, men are often kept out of higher education to become husbands and work the fields, and the birth of a baby girl is met with jubilation, whereas a boy's birth is less of a cause for celebration.

There is also a burgeoning men's suffrage movement, members of which are fighting for men's rights and "just want to bring the men up to where the women are." Sounds familiar. It looks like no one likes to be oppressed, regardless of gender.