“This is the word ‘emperor’, and this is what Europe looks like on a world map, and here is China, your majesty.”
Talking back and forth, practising everyday English with his tutor, the young Emperor, Guangxu, was said to spend nearly 2 hours each day on this alien language, and his accent was described as “reasonably good” by a British scholar.
In what was a personification of China’s feudal system, this was the first time in Chinese history when the male-dominated society probably thought about their great grand fathers’ social faux-pas during the reception of the British delegation headed by Lord McCartney nearly a century before.
Nevertheless, the fact was simple, Guangxu understood that China no longer topped a patriarchal international system. No more.
This was indicative of a new dawn, an era when the “upper structure” opened its eyes toward the world, mentally treating other countries as equals, if not superior, deviating from traditional concepts that those are secondary entities which bear obligations to stand in awe of the Middle Kingdom in female-to-male relations.
Over the past century, especially since the founding of the People’s Republic, for the people living on this soil, gender relations have undergone tremendous transformation.
The concept of the “Second Sex” under Simone de Beauvoir has become a despicable notion on account that “women hold up half of the sky”.
Yes, be it half of the sky, or the new linchpin of society, China’s gender equality situation is improving with a speed rarely seen in human history.
Looking at an income table featuring two genders, people are often surprised by the stalemate in income levels for females through all age brackets. In the most severe case, females in Japan earn as much as 50 percent less than their male counterparts in all walks of life.
When it comes to names, “crowning” the family with the male’s name is still the practical social more in many countries, including Japan. More astonishing is some of the expressions found in today’s Japanese language. Even in 2021, when a married Japanese woman refers to her husband, she still shall say, “ご主人” (Go-shyu-jin), meaning “master” or “owner”.
Make no mistake, throughout the history of this island nation, women have been in every way inferior to men, therefore leaving an indelible trace in its language.
Although bred in roughly the same cultural ambience as much of Northeast Asia, China has progressed much further in advancing gender equality, at least by every means to which the competent authorities could resort, during the past 7 decades and beyond. I recall my great grand mother’s name as Wang Yao Shi (王姚氏), meaning the “the woman surnamed Wang Yao”. Spending my illiterate preschool childhood years believing this to be her real name, in fact it was not. Having married my great grand father, Mr. Wang, and hence losing her maiden given name, her original family name then came only second.
“This is preposterously unfair”, I thought to myself later on. What we are right here, right now, stems from our first 9 months’ residence in the female womb, yet this great gender didn’t even deserve a full upright name when grown? This, fortunately, is just a “did”. Those days are long gone in my country.
In today’s China, women enjoy as many equal rights to men in so far as their physical capabilities are capable. Gladly, they also fare as well as men in many other aspects.
A friend of mine informed me recently that she feels relieved to know Chinese female scholars now boast the gender advantage during the selection of academics.
Perhaps in the eyes of some feminists, such should not be necessary, as females are inherently and genetically equal to their male counterparts. But in the broader picture, just as the Americans did with Affirmative Action back in the 1960s, this helps our society to attach greater importance to the rights of a once vulnerable group of people.
For all the progress made, there are fields, nevertheless, that still have room for improvement. First and foremost, educational opportunities in remote rural areas for females.
Born and raised in East China, it’s hard to entertain the idea that when a family’s school attendance is limited due to lack of financial means, girls often renounce it for the future of elder or younger brothers.
As the expression goes, “Females eventually marry into a new family like a basin of water poured out for good”.
Yet this is the real case in areas in the far west of the country. Listening to Ms. Zhang Guimei’s speech on the conferring ceremony of “July 1 Medal”, the highest honour within CPC, I felt deeply touched.
Zhang spent most of her life in Yunnan, where she founded a high school offering education to girls for free. Her efforts during these years have assisted nearly 2,000 girls to enroll in college and chase their dreams of life. The school script allegedly used by Zhang to boost the confidence of the her students went viral on the internet.
“We are born with endowed talents… and what modern day female should pursue are dreams and how to fight for them… (Girls,) you deserve to be great, and are able to stand on a higher platform (for achieving your life goals)!”
A new paradigm has arrived in the Chinese gender relationship, in which females are equipped with more opportunities and, more importantly, offered wider horizons as to pursue their life dreams.
In his farewell speech, Barack Obama said, “The world has changed, and we must change with it!” For us Chinese males, this is also an admonishment. As Chinese females are working hard to get ahead and garner their fair share, we males need to catch up.
“Our Chinese men cannot just get back home from work and rush to the sofa for the rest of day or just play video games like a “Da Ye” (大爷; acting snobbish). If they do, the harmony between us will be adversely affected”, claimed one of my classmates. “What’s the point of getting married then? To serve a ‘master’? Get over themselves!”
Thankfully, the traditional Chinese family style described as, “Nan zhu wai; nv zhu nei” (男主外女主内), or “men centred around career, women the home”, has gradually been swept into the dustbin.
And who would say it is not a movement toward greater good for everyone? We Chinese males are obliged to be in a better version of ourselves with each passing day to get along with our dear girls and ladies.
For the genders in China, there is today in place incremental equality in resources, and tomorrow hopefully, equity in mindsets.
