What Life Is Like For Men In China's Kingdom Of Women

According to ThoughtCo, "In China and India alone, an estimated 2 million baby girls go 'missing' each year." Many of these disappearances result from female infanticide. In China, that evil is rooted partly in a Confucian view of women as burdens and men as superior beings who will also care for their elderly parents later in life. 

China's One Child Policy, implemented in 1979, only exacerbated matters. Many parents, adamant about ensuring their one child was male, "would abort, kill, or abandon baby girls." Female infanticide has been so widespread in China that among some segments of the populace there have been 140 men for every 100 women, prompting residents to abduct women from neighboring nations. Against the backdrop of this awfulness, it might seem unbelievable that the Middle Kingdom would be home to a "kingdom of women." But it is.

It's kind of ironic that a place ruled by women would be called a "kingdom" instead of a "queendom," but for the Mosuo culture, a kingdom is a queendom by definition. Situated in "the Himalayan foothills between Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, where the legend of Shangri-La was born," per the Pulitzer Center, the Mosuo believe that "everything vital in the world originates from a woman." (And given how human reproduction works, they have a point). 

Mosuo culture teaches that women are smarter and overall better than men. So as you might expect, dudes have less power and fewer responsibilities in the society. Mosuo women have rule of the household, decide inheritances, and control child rearing. Men provide financial support but do little in the way of actual parenting. In fact, according to The Guardian, it's normal for women not to know who fathered their child.

Mosuo women not only call the shots but make booty calls. They live separately from men, inviting them over for meals or to serve as dessert when a woman has a hankering for some sugar between the sheets. Though they often form monogamous bonds known as "walking marriages," women can also have affairs without having to worry about a jealous husband because the words for "jealous" and "husband" don't exist in their culture, according to the Pulitzer Center. As one woman put it, "Men speak a different language from us. We like them and we need them, but we also value our freedom."