Evaluatingequality
China has made great strides in promoting gender equality but a change of mindsets is still required
LITTLE did Han Han realize his new film Duckweed would thrust him into the maelstrom of a nationwide controversy, especially among young women, before it premiered on January 28, the Chinese Lunar New Year Day. The theme song, released before the premiere, lit up social media placing the famous writer, car racer and film director in decidedly hot water.
At the heart of the criticism was a complaint from Xu Xin, a 20-year-old actress who accused Han of discriminating against women in the song’s lyrics.
“When innocent boys hear the song they will be influenced and will very probably discriminate against women in their life,” said Xu.
Before marrying me, you must know this: Every day, you [the woman] must get up earlier than me, sleep later than me; you must cook good meals for me and keep good relations with my mother and my sisters.
These are some of the lyrics Han wrote for the song. “Nowadays, women do not need to place their hopes on men, or prove themselves based on the love from their husbands,” said Xu.
For Xu, Han’s message in the song is outdated. “Maybe decades ago, women might choose to keep silent when they came across such a song. But now, the idea of gender equality has been deeply rooted in people’s minds and many women are standing up and expressing their own ideas,” she said.
Without doubt gender equality has been widely recognized in China. According to a survey by Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau, 94.1 percent of the respondents believe that women and men are playing equal roles in social development. Some even believe that women are playing bigger roles than men.
The Internet-related figures also indicate women’s rising social status. A total of 67 percent of the users of Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like microblogging website, are women, according to Weibo statistics. Figures from Alibaba, China’s e-commerce giant, show that women in China contributed to 70 percent of online sales in 2016.
“Though there are some cases that show gender inequality, it is true that women’s social status has been greatly improved over the past decades,” said Xu. “Women should learn to be independent.”