Gender Interaction

When we talk about gender interaction and discourse, certain stereotypes jump into mind. Research has proven some of these stereotypes correct. For example, in mixed gender talk, men interrupt women more, and women give much more back channel support than men. Women also use much more mitigated forms than men. These findings seem to portray men as the dominant sex, and women as more submissive.

These results certainly are in line with the traits of most societies today, because today's world is basically dominated by patriarchal societies. What about matriarchal societies though?

In Yunnan province, China, live the Mosuo people who are one of the last living matriarchal societies today. The grandmother or mother is the head of the family. A house may be inhabited by the grandmother, mother, her children, brothers, nieces and nephews but not her husband. In fact, they do not get married there. Women choose who their lovers are, and end the relationship whenever they want. The children born of the relationship are the mother's, and although the children know who their biological father is, they do not share a close relationship with him.

You can read more about this here: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mosuo-One-of-the-Last-Matriarchal-Societies-36321.shtml

In such a society where the female is the central authoratative figure, surely gender talk is different from the "norm"? Perhaps Mosuo practice subconsciously involves women interrupting men, talking more than men, and requires the men to provide more listener responses. IT seems funny to me, but it could be very possible.

After all, it has been argued that gender roles exist because of societal practices and pressure. It may not necessarily be something that we are born intrinsically with. I'm just wondering if any study has been done on discourse in matriarchal societies and what the results were? I think that would be interesting to find out. Perhaps I should change my project topic. Haha.