My Most Important Thing I Have Learned

In Chinese culture, it is said, “a woman’s greatest duty is to have a son.” If a woman does not give birth to a son, her husband will often take another wife in hopes of another woman carrying his heir (Hvistendahl 2008). Women are viewed as so inferior, that often, poor families would sell their daughters as servants to rich families. Despite the egalitarian nature of Chinese society, many parents believe that having a son is a vital element of providing for their old age. When a daughter is married off, she is no longer

I had mixed notions about what it means to be a woman as I was growing up, and I trace a part of this conflict back to my heritage. My parents are both Chinese immigrants, but I was born and raised in America, so I identify with both cultures. The cultural differences between America and China about what qualities woman should or should not have was interesting to explore, especially as I was entering college. In my parents’ eyes, being a woman meant that I had to eventually settle down and raise children, essentially have my own nuclear family. I began challenging that notion, suggesting the possibility that I would never get married and never have children. I do not believe that just because I am woman that I had to start my own family or get married. That is not to say I am opposed to those life events happening, but I wanted to at least know that those were not my only options, especially if I am pursuing a career after attending college.

males to be precious and more prestigious than the females. The birth of a boy

In China, there is a one child policy due to major increase in population. This puts strain on the couple who want to have children. The wife especially has a role strain because she is the one who carries the child. If a wife gets pregnant and births nothing but girls, then they have to live with the fact that their only child is a girl and that she may not carry out the family name. Carrying out the family name is important to tradition Chinese families. Also, to try again to have a boy, that would mean they are breaking the law by having more children. This leads to giving up their child or abandoning them. In the video, a family is shown of a husband, wife, and little girl. The wife explains how she decided to keep her daughter and how she had a tough time dealing with her husband because he threatened to leave her is she did not give him a boy.

In conclusion, it was always unfair to the females in one way or another and the males always benefit in a Chinese family as they think that only a male can do the family proud.

Chinese culture is known to value male children more than female children therefore by limiting the number to one child, it increased the disadvantages that the females had. “When a son is born ,let him sleep on the bed … ,may he grow to wear crimson,” but “when a daughter is born, let her sleep on the ground…and give her broken tiles for play things.”( ) This is a poem that ---uses to describe the how males and females are treated differently in China. Sex trafficking and prostitution have also been at an all-time high due to this policy. In the article Gendercide and the cultural contexts of sex trafficking in china the authors asserts that “women in China are brought, sold and murdered in order to comply with a governmental policy that coincides with a culture of male preference.”( ) .Gangs in China have established a market for women to facilitate the high demand for women. In extreme cases men have resulted into purchasing a bride and some couples have been desperate enough to purchase baby boys for sons. The disproportionate ratio between males and females in China has increased the rape incidents in china. Due to the one child policy, china has extremely high numbers of male population comes as a result of selective abortion and abandonment of girls. In addition to that, china has a very

Even before a book becomes a book, they are words first. Many societies believe in masculine and feminine words and symbols. The Chinese society also portrays women as being negative. For well over thousands of years, females have held a lower status in Chinese households and society, you can see this in their writings and laws. The China’s One-child policy is a population control policy which prevented 400 million births, since the 1980’s. Yet the policy has numerous flaws that make the policy bias towards women. In 2007, China received criticize when they allowed more than half of the China’s population to have another child if their first one was a female. The biggest criticize China has received was the abolition rate from parents, who

A woman's status in China was to obey. She was supposed to obey her father, her husband, her mother-in-law, and even her own sons if something were to happen to her husband. A woman's life in China was filled with obedience and subjugation. The quote from the poem "A Marriage Ends" shows us that a woman isn't supposed to think for herself, she only supposed to obey.

In the article “How China’s one child Law Backfired on men” it states the combination of China’s one child policy and the advent of sonograms has meant that families who preferred a son could get what they wanted, aborting unwanted girls” (“How china’s one child law backfired on men”). This mens, since it was always favored to have a boy that since most people are aborting their baby girls and then getting a bot, more people in China are men. Most families wanted a boy because in the Chinese culture the man usually takes care of the parents when they get old, and the women helps to take care of her husband’s parents. Naturally parents want to have care when they get old wanting a boy instead of a girl so when families were only allowed to have one child the girl was abandoned and not the boy, which led to an imbalance of population. The baby girls in China that get abandoned usually die or get adopted and move out of China before reaching adulthood. Having an imbalance of population resulted in many men in China not ever having a chance of marrying. Women in China have almost no work to do in order to get married but the men have it different. If many men in China there will be less couples having babies which means ways less people every generation. The men magnets or women in China are a result of the imbalance of population that led from China’s one child

In the Chinese culture, we are known to be a male dominant culture. Many traditional Chinese family values the males in the family more than the females because males are usually the head of the family. Males are given more freedom when they are growing up. Female children are often restricted to do many activities because of society expectation for females’ role and behavior. For instance, males tend to participate in masculine activities like Tae Kwon Do and football while females would participate in feminine activities such as sewing and dancing. Not only there were gender appropriate activities, but there were gender appropriate toys. In

Given the high sex ratio in recent China population report, the abnormally excessive male birth exemplifies the persistence of son preference on women’s fertility behavior. Son preference rooted in Chinese agriculture-based economy and historical feudalism, in consistence with the reliance on laborers and continuing the family line. Older people prefer to depend on their sons to get financial and physical support, while daughters are regarded as property of their husband’s family since the day of marriage.

Boys are viewed as such a high commodity that women in China are taking extreme measures to guarantee themselves a male. From the use of selective abortions to the abandonment of young girls, new technology is helping them eliminate their unwanted female fetus. "Because of the Communist government's brutal 25-year-old one-child policy, and since boys are considered more valuable than girls--as they carry on the family name and are expected to care for aging parents--ultrasound machines are employed to determine the sex of the baby. Then, if the baby is a girl, abort her." (Bauer pg16) For those families, who cannot afford to have this new technology, they resort to other drastic measures by abandoning the newborn daughter. With these methods, girls are being terminated and becoming limited while boys are thriving and becoming an excess in present day China. Thus creating a

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.

In China, women are going to live with their husbands, sometimes with the whole family of their husbands. Women need to handle many complex relationships with husbands’ families. In a big family, they are always considered as strangers, making them unable to deal with family issues. What’s worse, they are even considered only as fertility tools sometimes. What they can do is to give a son to their husband’s family.

     In our society, the United States, children are seen potentially as the as the future. Whether they are male or female, they have the power to be something when they grow up. But if their life is cut short, the opportunity to do so is taken away. In 1976, China implemented what is known as the "One-Child Policy" in order to try and solve their problem of overpopulation (McDonald, 1996). Although the policy may seem as though it is a good idea in solving the problem, the consequences of this policy has lead to female infanticide.