Democratic, Egalitarian Buddhism...
While safron-robed monks in austere monasteries strictly following the demands of mysterious cosmic gurus is a somewhat dressed up version of what most Westerners think of when they hear of Buddhism, many modern Buddhist groups are quite surprisingly different. Buddhist doctrine deals very little with social life, especially outside that of the monastery, and even where prescriptions of how society should be run one must acknowledge the social context in which these prescriptions were made.
Throughout time the way in which Buddhist groups have operated has changed as widely and nearly as frequently as the direction of flow of a great river. It began in a time of quite strong patriarchy and for practical reasons adopted many patriarchal practices. Today, in America as throughout much of the West, Buddhism exists in societies that have witnessed great revolutions of thought in both gender issues and politics, and it has responded openly.
To say that all Buddhist groups and hence all Buddhism today is run in a democratic or egalitarian manner would, however, be a great disservice to the truth. Countless organizational structures can be found in modern Buddhist groups ranging from hierarchical, guru based structures to groups in which no central teacher figure is even recognized.