Mosuo Women

The Chinese take their cultural beliefs very seriously and will do anything to keep their ancestors happy. The fact of carrying the family name on to their next generation should not determine whether a child should live or die. The bottom line is that girls in China receive far less attention and resources than boys and are deemed in-superior in society. (Fitzpatrick)

It is commonly taught in textbooks or shown in the media that colonial mothers are always taking part in childcare, but in reality the “modern working women” (1) spends more time taking care of their children. During the hours that modern women are not working, they are usually taking care of the children and doing household work to manage the household, in which the “traditional family” seems more fitting in categorizing the modern family, rather than the colonial family. The colonial women did not have to worry about taking care of the children, because they usually gave the task of caring for the children to the servants or older siblings. Moreover, the traditional family are usually perceived as a family where the husband and wife are role models of a loving, caring, and supportive relationship for their children. This leads the children to act in the same positive way with others by observing the relationship between their parents. Interestingly, the “traditional” families in the past were not traditional, as women and children were advised to be obedient to their husbands, otherwise they would be abused and

My topic will be the “child bridge” system and the traditional rural life in China toward to the story “Xiao Xiao” by Sheng Congwen. The story is mainly about a young girl, Xiao Xiao who enters into the child bridge system with no choice and facing the struggle between the modern and traditional Chinese culture. Child bridge system was an unfair system that use to against women and was very common in rural China. It was an arranged marriage which daughter in the poor family would sell to a rich family for economic support. The daughter would marry with a male member of the rich family who was younger than themselves as the wife and a labor. There is no love between the couple. In rural China, women’s life

As industrialization spread in Western Europe, the production of products and goods moved from the household to factories which drastically changed family life. Married women were unable to work unless they left their children and home in someone else’s care. Moreover, middle-class women generally did not leave their homes in order to work. In contrast, the women of Eastern Asia rapidly joined the work force after the introduction of industrialization and made up a gigantic portion of the labor force. This difference is probably due to the fact that the rural women of Eastern Asia were always laborers, and they make up the majority of the female population. Additionally, European women generally preferred domestic labor to laborious tasks. Rural women were offered independence by leaving their homes in order to perform domestic work; they generally sent their earnings to their families or saved it for themselves. Moreover, the European women that participated in the work force were forced to travel long distances and were separated from their families from long hours. Additionally, their wages were significantly lower than that of their male counterparts. Furthermore, women worked under poor conditions and were constantly susceptible to disease. Similarly, the poor women of Eastern Asia sought employment in the cotton and silk industry.

Additionally, in the Chinese civilizations even the ruling class prominently honored their departed male ancestors, by publicly orating ceremonies honoring them for guiding the family. The ruling class was considered an example that everyone should follow, therefore if they start to honor their departed male ancestors more, the civilization will follow and therefore slowly shift the society towards a patriarchal one. This shows how families focused more on the male side than the female to the point where the males were remembered and the females were forgotten when the died. The last piece of evidence is the Lawbook of Manu from the Harappan Society, the Lawbook described sex and gender relationships and stated that women were under the authority of men, and the Book of History from the Zhou Dynasty in the Chinese River Valley civilizations which had a collection of documents that called for subjects to obey their overlords. These two pieces of literature show that throughout both societies women were under the authority of men and it was written showing that it was a very large part of their society. To summarize, overall the both societies were controlled by men and men were honored and valued; while women were left in the

China's skewed sex ratio is one of the most important demographic problems facing the nation. Already, the effect of many years of imbalance is discernable: in 2005, there were more than 32 million excess males in the population under the age of 20.6As this trend continues, there may be serious social consequences. First, unregistered girls have no access to education or other social services and must live on the margins of society. Second, it will be increasingly harder for men to marry, violating the Chinese cultural norm that every adult should marry and have children. Some analysts even assert that the skewed SRB will create a surplus of "bare branches," the historical name for unmarriageable, ungovernable, antisocial men, leading to social

Starting in 1949, and intensifying during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, a diametric shift began to take place with Chinese gender roles. The social status of women was drastically improved, as they were allowed to venture forth from the domestic sphere. Many women began working outside the house, allowing them to earn an income for their birth families before they were married. (Hinton, 1984) The dowry culture began to recede in favor of love marriages, further reducing the economic strain a female child would place on her household. (Huang, 2012) Love marriages and earning power also increased the woman’s status within the household. It became commonplace for daughters to visit their birth families, allowing them to assist in caring or elderly relatives, a task previously designated only to sons. (Yan,

The Role of women in rural society novella, is especially a denunciation of the status of poor women in traditional Chinese society, especially in the countryside. In an essay on

The Dying Room seals the fate of a myriad of girls in China who are abandoned. Starvation, lack of medical care, and neglect occupy the orphanages that unwanted girls are crammed and imprisoned in. It is often termed as the 'Kindergulag' (Mosher). Girls, the second class citizen in a patriarchal society, live in squalid environments of filth that predetermine their life expectancy solely because of their gender. China, among other East Asian countries, continues to grasp onto the fact that male superiority is key to success. Men, unlike women, are less emotional, more rational, and physically stronger. This backwards and sexist perception is deeply embedded in Chinese culture. In the 20th century, it officially resurfaced when China's Population and Family Planning Commission implemented the infamous One-child policy - which limited families to producing only one child in efforts to stabilize the national population (Greenhalgh 1). The intended effect of the One-child policy engendered several erroneous consequences upon the female faction of the country that has and will continue to put a strain on the China's future generation and its efforts to propel itself onto the stage as a world power.

The Yunnan and Szechuan provinces of southwest china have been home to the people of the Mosuo culture for nearly 2000 years. With a population of approximately 56, 000, the Mosuo tribe is dwarfed when compared to china’s population of 3.1 billion. The majority of the families live around Lugu Lake, a region that was isolated from the world until the 1970s.The Mosuo tribe is often described as one of the last living matriarchal societies today. “Given that Mosuo women make most of the major decisions, control the household finances, and pass on the family name to their children, many anthropologists classify the Mosuo culture as a "matriarchal society." but those who have studied these ancient societies are often at odds as to what to label them. Many prefer to call societies, like the Mosuo, "matrilineal" societies. [Source: frontline pbs.org]. In a matriarchy, a female is head of the family or society. With a matrilineal society, descent is traced through the mothers rather than fathers. Property is inherited through the female line.

This article spends a lot of time discussing how many women in China are worried that they will not find the perfect husband by the time they get too and the choices become slim. The Western part of the world may view marriage and love differently than the standards of a married couple in China. Many people in the Western part of the world look for love in marriage while in China, the aim is marriage and not true love. Chinese’s parents fear a lot for their daughters as they too go out and try to connect their daughters with a future husband by connecting with other parents. The term used in the context is having their daughter becoming a shengnu or derogatory term, literally, a “leftover women.”

The women in Tibet before the Chinese takeover enjoyed a very high social status. They had a very active role to play in the family and in the society as a whole. Women were warriors, leaders, mothers, traders and business women. There wasn’t any sense of men being superior to women in society; nor were the women restricted in any way or bounded in what they were supposed to do. An egalitarian way of living was practiced by the Tibetans.

This study examined the divide between gender cultures in urban China. According to Qian (2014), women in their late 20s were referred to as “leftover ladies” (p. 1337). Because of the low average marriage age of women, the odds of them marrying later is unlikely. The effect that education is placed on marriage depends on the differences in gender roles. Because China was previously under a socialist economy, gender inequality in the work place was not as drastic as it is now. China’s female employment rate was among the highest in the world at that time. Once China shifted from a planned economy to a market economy, the motive to keep gender equality in the workplace diminished, causing a decrease in women workers. Traditional values emerged again in China, where the role of the breadwinner was taken by the men and the housemaker role was established by the women. This influenced the next generations when their children would marry. Arranged marriages are illegal in China, but parents still play a primary role in their children’s marriages. The parents could be raising their children in the same traditional values they grew up on. The women would teach their daughters how to run a household,

Under the strong influence of Confucianism, male-centred gender values have been deep-rooted in the Chinese society since thousands years ago. Those values are reflected in many Chinese classical literatures which are still taught in school nowadays. Liji, the Book of Rites (475-221 BC) advocates the doctrines of “three obedience and four virtues” that girls should be confined at home and learn skills of housework to prepare for raising a family after marriage. They ought to behave in submissive, modest and humble ways and obey the seniors

When one considers all the problems plaguing the world today, it is far too easy to idealize previous civilizations as utopias where the problems of today were unknown to the relatively carefree and altogether liberated individuals. Although their solutions to these problems may have indeed differed, the ancient civilizations struggled with the same questions we continue to confront in our modern world. One such problem is the role parents play as caregivers for their offspring. Historically a female’s function is to perform duties to maintain the home and nurture the children whereas a male’s role is to provide financial support. Today, the focus has shifted: the dysfunctional family has disbanded and many women have begun to play both