The questions I receive offer fascinating insights into what it’s like to be a woman in China today. Since the column started, we have received a total of 14,397 letters, 90 percent of them from women. Most of the writers live in urban areas and hold college degrees. A quarter of them write me about affairs with married men, usually the women’s bosses. To get a sense of their concerns, consider the following sample:
Some 30 percent of my readers, meanwhile, seem to have a hard time finding a partner at all. Here is a typical complaint:
Such problems are far from unique, and say a lot about the attitudes of Chinese women. Most of us now face acute dilemmas over what roles to play in the country’s booming new market economy. Although we have gained economic status as China has grown richer, we have not really gained in social status. Chinese society is still deeply traditional, and Confucius said that “a virtuous woman is without talent.” This notion remains deeply rooted in Chinese culture. We don’t like highly educated, highly paid professional women. Deep down, many Chinese remain very skeptical about the value of successful woman when it comes to relationships, families and social environments. When women make money, it is considered disruptive.
That said, China has enjoyed official gender equality for more than 50 years now. In government agencies and state-owned enterprises, men and women are required by law to receive equal pay. Indeed, Chinese women never had to fight to achieve formal equality: it was handed to us instead on a silver platter. Ironically, this might not have been a good thing. For it has left Chinese women unequipped to deal with gender issues in the current market economy (as opposed to Communist China’s old, state-run system). In addition, we have failed to develop a moral structure that would help us women understand the complicated social issues that arise from wealth. Remember that polygamy was abolished in China only when the Communists took over in 1949. My grandmother always said that it was good to be the first in school but the last in marriage—meaning it was more important to be the most favored wife than it was to be a smart student. Such attitudes still linger.
As a result, the kinds of compromises and decisions Western career women now make all the time remain difficult and morally burdensome for their Chinese counterparts. Consider the case of my communications director: only two months after she was promoted to that post, she asked me for a demotion. When I asked why, she replied that she did not want to give her fianc? the impression that she was too focused on her career. What’s wrong with that? I asked. She said that in his family, a “good woman” was one who made her husband and her family the priority of her life.
As all that suggests, China may be changing fast—but there’s still plenty of work for us agony aunts to accomplish.
