half the sky

We sometimes hear people voice doubts about opposition to sex trafficking, genital cutting, or honor killings because of their supposed inevitability. What can our good intentions achieve against thousands of years of tradition?

Our response is China. A century ago, China was arguably the worst place in the world to be born female. Foot-binding, child marriage, concubinage, and female infanticide were embedded in traditional Chinese culture....

So was it cultural imperialism for Westerners to criticize foot-binding and female infanticide? Perhaps. But it was also the right thing to do. If we believe firmly in certain values, such as the equality of all human beings regardless of color or gender, then we should not be afraid to stand up for them; it would be feckless to defer to slavery, torture, foot-binding, honor killings or genital cutting just because we believe in respecting other faiths and cultures. One lesson of China is that we need not accept that discrimination is an intractable element of any society. If culture were immutable, China would still be impoverished and Sheryl would be stumbling along on three-inch feet....

Communism after the 1949 revolution was brutal in China..., but its single most positive legacy was the emancipation of women. After taking power, Mao brought women into the workforce and the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and he used his political capital to abolish child marriage, prostitution, and concubinage. It was Mao who proclaimed: "Women hold up half the sky."

There were some setbacks for women with the death of ideology and the rise of a market economy in the 1980s, and Chinese women still face challenges....

All that said, no country has made as much progress in improving the status of women as China has. Over the past one hundred years, it has become - at least in the cities - one of the best places to grow up female...

- Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky

For the most part, I agree with their assessment of the status of women in China. Even in such a place as rural as where I am, women certainly do hold up half, if not more, of the sky. Here in Lidu, it seems as if most of the shops and restaurants are run by women, and most of the teachers, perhaps even the students, are female (of course, that could be due to the demographic imbalance, which points to women, perhaps coerced into, choosing to abort baby girls so their one child can be a boy, which then ultimately shows that not all of traditional sexism has been uprooted). Of course, gender issues remain, and many of my girls are obsessed with losing weight and some of my female colleagues get pressured into doing whatever they can to "catch a husband." Not much different from America.

But the progress made is obvious, and the lesson, at least for me, is also obvious.

Why should I be afraid of being called imperialistic and self-righteous, of shoving my beliefs down the throats of others, so long as I don't choke those I seek to help? Why should I be afraid of offending tradition? Why should I be so concerned about being politically correct when I believe, without a doubt, that gender violence and inequality is wrong?

To be continued...
:)