Meghalaya - The Indian state where women rule and there is a men's rights movement

[pampango]

In the small hilly Indian state of Meghalaya, a matrilineal system operates with property names and wealth passing from mother to daughter rather than father to son - but some men are campaigning for change.

It appears that some age-old traditions have been ruffling a few feathers of late, causing the views of a small band of male suffragettes to gain in popularity, reviving some rather outspoken opinions originally started by a small group of intellectuals in the 1960s.

I am sitting across a table from Keith Pariat, President of Syngkhong-Rympei-Thymmai, Meghalaya's very own men's rights movement. He is quick to assure me that he and his colleagues "do not want to bring women down," as he puts it. "We just want to bring the men up to where the women are."

"If you want to know how much the Khasis favour women just take a trip to the labour ward at the hospital," he says. "If it's a girl, there will be great cheers from the family outside. If it's a boy, you will hear them mutter politely that, 'Whatever God gives us is quite all right.'"

I talk to Patricia Mukkum, the well-respected editor of Shillong's daily newspaper. She assures me that her heritage is only one of the reasons why she has risen to the level she has and points out that the tradition of excluding women from the political decision making process is still very strong in their culture.

As a mother of children by three different Khasi fathers however, she is the first to admit that their societal anomaly has afforded her ample opportunities to be both a mother and a successful career woman.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16592633

Interesting that this state exists in India - surprising, in a good way.

[Nikia]

1. Although the culture may be sexist against men in some ways, it is mild to patriarchy in many places

There are suggestions in the article that it might not be complete matriarchy also. A woman they interviewed said that women tend to be excluded from political decision making. I think that there are other cultures too where men and women may have power in different spheres. This might be the case here, rather than matriarchy as the article suggests.
It is interesting the point about language. Sexism is built into many languages when words are gendered. In English, few words are gendered, but there is the supposedly gender neutral "man", "mankind", and various professions with the prefix "man" suggesting that male is the default gender.

[kestrel91316]

2. It probably isn't quite like the matriarchy in Sherri Tepper's book "The Gate To Women's Country".