Why do people believe that women have the upper hand now?
They might have in the slight time frame between high school graduation and marriage (~25 years for Chinese women). Before they have not much say because their fathers are the boss. Afterwards they have husbands who don't do anything but work and sleep (and maybe care for their mistresses). It's true that in that short slice of time their power over each single men who wants them is nearly unlimited. But would you trade your whole life for 5 years of power over guys you don't care about?
And it's not really true that they have power in a global sense, it's only in each of these 1-on-1 encounters with potential marriage partners. On the global scale requirements like beauty and social standards are higher and the push to marriage is also stronger than for men.
So this "has backfired on men" should be read as "has decreased the huge advantage of men to become only a big advantage for men".
In my experience many men overestimate the power of women's sexual choices, and underestimate the power of social structures and habits that prefer men.
I think this is because men experience the power of female sexual choice first-hand during adolescence. It's a time of crazy emotions in general, and none crazier than those related to love and sex. It can seem like your entire happiness is dependent on whether a particular girl likes you back. That is memorable.
(Of course, women experience the same things during adolescence. Very few feel powerful during that time...they feel vulnerable just like the guys.)
Meanwhile, men do not directly experience the power of social structures that prefer them. Instead what they experience is a relative absence of barriers that present themselves to women. And how easy is it to notice the absence of something you've never experienced? Not easy at all.
It's very difficult in general for humans to empathize with experiences that they've never had themselves. David Foster Wallace discussed this memorably in his "this is water" speech.
Except that the article actually says the opposite.
> Consider Cai Li (who asked her real name not be used in this article), a 34-year-old marketing executive in Shanghai: she is smart, engaging, hip and attractive. She is also the divorced mother of an 8-year-old girl. When she caught her husband, a Taiwanese businessman, philandering five years ago, she didn't hesitate. "I divorced him as soon as I could," she says. "He was shocked. He thought I wasn't serious, that I wouldn't do it because of our daughter. I said, 'You'll see'. And within a week I had filed the papers [for divorce]. And why wouldn't I? Why should I put up with that? I have parents here in Shanghai who help take care of my daughter, I had a good job. Plus, if I want to get remarried, it's not as if there's a shortage of men, even at my age, who would be interested. [My ex] was crazy to think I was going to stick around."
> The only problem for Cai was that her parents sided with her ex. "They had a typical Chinese reaction. They said, 'Oh come on, he probably won't do it again. It's not that big a deal anyway'," she says. "It was a generational attitude. When they were young, people put up with it, I guess. But I told them, not now. I was really angry. I put my foot down. Things are different now."
While its true the women who were born have a slight advantage when it comes to hetero pairing off, the main premise ignores the fact that many never made it out of the womb and they are the real disadvantaged ones. That is, there are men alive because their parents forwent a daughter via physician intervention. Now, this has nothing to do with being pro choice or not, but one can't ignore the undercurrent which gives rise to this.
Now, with regard to men in cities, if they could only subject themselves to the injustice of marrying a mate from the countryside, they would not have a problem, but for whatever reason, a city reared mate it must be, so cry me a river.
That is clearly not what the article was claiming, either you have information the author does not or you have an agenda you're not being truthful about.
Some officials are already acknowledging that one child has gone on too long, and most couples are allowed to have two now (most minorities have always been allowed more, most country-side dwellers are allowed two if the first is a boy). But many couples aren't taking advantage of the new two child policy, since raising a kid in a Chinese city is expensive (especially schooling, which isn't really free).
Korea went through the same cycle: too many kids in the 70s, got everyone cut back, and then they went over a demographic cliff and now have to beg couples to have more kids today.
What I don't understand is why not marry someone from the countryside? It's not as if there isn't a supply. However it seems perceived status gets in the way and these guys hoping to pair off would rather endure than settle with a mate from the countryside.
Really great read; sheds light on some things I never understood about china, but now it makes sense.
Goverment: "Stop making so many babies! that's it, just one per couple."
Citizens: "well, if we can only have one, we better make sure it's a boy!"
What could go wrong?
Yes, woman are gaining some upper hand here; and thats good. But it's not because of a change of outlooks or perspectives of the people, it's simply out of scarcity of the gender.
And what happens when there aren't enough women to go around? why, they import them of course! And by import I mean sex slavery and arranged marriages.
>Citizens: "well, if we can only have one, we better make sure it's a boy!"
I get the feeling that the people who invented the "One child policy" where at a different stage in civilization/education/whatever you call, than the people for whom they made the rule. So they didn't even consider that the public might choose to get rid of their girls.
China has been extremely focus on reaching the western standards of living, but their culture haven't been able to keep up. I think it's great that they addressed the issue of over-population, something that a country like India has failed to do. Their error was that they didn't try to bring about lower birth rates though education and welfare programs and instead opted for punishment. The Chinese where given an incentive to abort girls, so in hindsight it's not a surprise that things have worked out the way they have.
Seems a better way is to follow the shoes of Germany and Japan. Those coutnries if they don't turn things around will be a 2/3 of what they were in just 40 years.
They can look at as many corollary data plots as they like, but the simple explanation is that modern society has made men dispensable. A traditional "patriarchal" marriage is based on the woman's need of a man to provide for her and keep her safe, while the man's attachment to a woman is primarily one of desire. Now that modern society has made it possible for a woman to live well without a man, she is free to base her romantic relations on desire as well. Obviously these things take decades to play out, so we still see the primary desires of woman lean toward the financial capabilities of the male. But this will slowly change. For better or worse, family structures of the future will look nothing like those of the past. Single mothers will top 50% in China, just as it has in the USA, within two generations.
Single mother rates aren't because women are some kind of super feminists who refuse to marry. The majority of single mother families are the result of failed marriages and long term relationships.
They are also most likely to be financially insecure. And that insecurity is due to the lack of participation in the rearing and responsibility for their child by the father.
In short, the rising rate of single parenthood in the U.S. is not an outcome of empowering women and equal rights. It's a consequence of abject poverty and lack of accountability by fathers.
Call me crazy but I think the fact that in China so many female fetuses are literally dispensed with kind of shows that women are a little more dispensable than men.
The planners don't care about the consequences. They have their fortune overseas. It's rather a failure of decoupled interests between them and the the rest of people.
Without central planning though, the entire situation would be an unintended consequence. Centralization has both benefits and drawbacks just like an unregulated situation.
In california we're trying to build a high speed train across the state. It's taking years for this happen with no end in sight. It's largely due to lack of funding and a lot of decentralized opposition.
In china, thanks to centralized planning, they can build the same public project in two years.
I think it remains to be shown whether these consequences were unintended. The point of the one-child policy was to limit population growth. A gender imbalance which leads to women being more independent and marrying later advances that goal very well.
You can't really knock this one on central planning alone, more that central planning didn't really understand the context of the society around them when they made the policy. If China hadn't been so insanely patriarchal, a one-child policy wouldn't have given parents there an incentive to abort their baby girls.
1.16 boys per girl? Down from 1.22? Wow. I knew there was an imbalance. I didn't realize it was quite so large.
It's really depressing that such an anachronistic notion (of carrying on your family's "name") is still so prevalent that it results in tens of millions of abortions of unwanted girls.
My only hope is that 20 or 30 years from now when the children of this generation of Chinese are themselves looking to marry and have families that such misogyny has fallen by the wayside.
Where USA stacks up to Materinity Leave compared to other countries.
1. Sweden offers the most generous maternity leave policy, with 56 weeks paid at 80 percent of citizens' salary, and 13 additional weeks paid at a fixed rate thereafter.
2. In some central European countries, the standard maternity leave is three years.
3. Adoptive parents and same-sex parents get parental leave in the U.K., Canada, France, and yes, Sweden.
4. There is still zero mandated maternity leave benefits in the U.S., although companies with over 50 employees are obligated to offer three months of unpaid time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
5. This makes the U.S. one of only four countries in the world with no required paid maternity leave. The others are Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea.
Japan is so screwed! By 2060 there population will be 50% of what it was and only 32 million people will be under 65 years old!
After peaking seven years ago, at 128 million, Japan's population has been falling — and is on a path to decline by about a million people a year. By 2060, the government estimates, there will be just 87 million people in Japan; nearly half of them will be over 65. Without a dramatic change in either the birthrate or its restrictive immigration policies, Japan simply won't have enough workers to support its retirees, and will enter a demographic death spiral. Yet the babies aren't coming.
Japan is betting that automation means they don't need gazillions of workers to feed their old.
If they're right, they'd win so big compared to "us" that in fact the biggest obstacle they're facing might be that "we" won't allow them to win the bet.
1. more man than woman, about 50Million man will probably never have a wife. Really, either legalize prostitution, or somehow have a war, otherwise you will read more news about rape.
2. the world is flat, woman are better educated and they do not want to marry a man that is inferior, they would rather stay unmarried if no good fit can be found, that further worsen the situation. low-class men are the real losers, in a large amount.
3. people do get married do not want to have more than one baby due to various reasons listed by others here.
1) That is a pretty dim and sexist view of men. You are implying that men who do not get married will be likely to resort to committing rape. I think a broad generalization like this should be backed up with statistics. It also distracts from marital rape, which is a frequent and often unreported form of rape.[0][1]
2) In China, sadly, there is still a gender imbalance in education. For example, the literacy rate is lower, on the whole, for women.[2] While a lot of attention is given to the demographic challenges facing men in China as a result of the one child policy, it is important to also recognize the challenges faced by women in China as well.
I'm curious how this seeming gender war will resolve. One way is that homosexual and asexual behavior will be accepted. Another is that men will decide to not prioritize marital relations. Finally, both genders could accept each other as equals and partners.
For the first, the supply of men will decrease. It might decrease enough to cause a more traditional relationship between the genders. The surviving heterosexual group will have more power since the demand is probably constant.
The second, is probably more how many picture the 1960s and 1970s in the US. Men getting the milk for free. In many ways if all you want is milk, so to speak, you get off quite well in the process. It is a selfish take on life, but oh well we'll all just matter anyway.
Third, this is the sanest approach. It allows the species to succeed. It also seems to make the major genetic predisposition of the species.
India has a similar gender imbalance for the same reasons- sons favored and selection technology.
India seems to have a horrifying rape culture in some places. I dont know if its always been there or worsened by the gender imbalance.
I wonder if the irony has been lost on the young men in Silicon Valley reading this article and teasing central planning before they go back to the grind so that someday they too can impress the Bay Area's few women who still don't resent tech wealth from the view of their Lamborghini.
Believe me if I wanted to get rich I wouldn't have gone into technology, I would have chosen a bullshit career in scamming (finance) and easily made my entire yearly salary in bonuses.
trying to impress a woman you want to actually spend more than one night with your wealth, or appearance of it, is just plain stupid. it will lure exactly the expected types - money grabbers who knows the word love only from some tv show. results of such "relationships" shouldn't be surprising
The article's description of women's power over men is reminiscent of Robert A. Heinlein's sci-fi novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, in which Luna had many more single men than single women, with similar results.
NYT had an interesting recent article "1.5 Million Missing Black Men", which discusses the socio-economic consequences in communities with a scarcity of men.
A lot of this is the result of historical policies and culture. It doesn't necessarily excuse poor behavior, but there's enough of that to go around on all sides that we eventually learn not to point fingers.
It is culturally expected of the man to take care of his parents and grandparents. It's a very gendered role, so a daughter might not accept that responsibility. Typically the son's loyalty is expected to go to his own parents, while the daughters loyalty would transfer to her husband's family. But sometimes when she got married her husband would accept responsibility for her parents as well. But that places a significant burden on the man. It wasn't that big of a deal with multiple children - you could split up the parents and grandparents. But with one child, you now have to hope that one can take care of six adults and a spouse. It's described as the 4-2-1 problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#.22Four-two-o...).
There was an article on modern Chinese women not wanting to support their parents that I encountered a while back (though I think it was older), but I'm having problems finding it. This might change, though, as new legislation surfaced recently making it a legal burden for all children (http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/chinese-laws-requ...). This should help alleviate a lot of retirement care concerns.
Some rural areas have policies where new children are greeted with extra land. This was returned to the government upon marriage for girls, while it stayed with the family for boys. Ostensibly this was to prevent the land from going to some city dweller. It's a policy littered with faulty assumptions, but that extra acre of land could be pretty tempting to a rural villager. (http://research-china.blogspot.com/2005/10/why-girls-are-aba...). Outdated ownership and inheritance policies are another cause for concern.
With the relaxing of the one-child policy, things got a lot better. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/07/as-china-s-...) Note that some parents are aborting boys for girls, now. But we can see that a lot (but not all) of the parents concern over the gender of their child can come from government policies and wanting a place to live in their declining years. Let's not try to force our own paradigms and logic on other cultures just because it's convenient. I'm not Chinese, but I still get frustrated when people judge their worth without considering Chinese values and cultural expectations. It's a lot more complex than an entire country hating women. Selfishness is a much more reasonable assumption. Assuming it's selfish to want your kids to take care of you when you took care of your parents and grandparents. I'd say it's more like perpetuating the cultural machine.
We've also completely ignored the historical relevance of China's bride price (http://qz.com/92267/in-a-reversal-of-the-dowry-chinese-men-p... and http://www.npr.org/2013/04/23/176326713/for-chinese-women-ma...). Surely the fact that it's been culturally expected to pay your wife's parents to be eligible for marriage has influence somewhere. Notably, a son (and thus continuing financial support) was still considered more desirable than a one-time payment. A daughter might make you rich, but a son would make sure you always had a place to live. Because if he didn't, society would make life very difficult for him.
Perhaps this would all be a bit better if parents weren't planning their children's lives (from their careers and educations down to their sex) based on their own wants and needs. But being old doesn't really make you wise.
Let me see : baby girls are being killed, lots of men will never marry and women become spoiled brats that choose their husbands only for their riches ... we must have a really different notion of "a good thing".
[+] [-] erikb|10 years ago|reply
They might have in the slight time frame between high school graduation and marriage (~25 years for Chinese women). Before they have not much say because their fathers are the boss. Afterwards they have husbands who don't do anything but work and sleep (and maybe care for their mistresses). It's true that in that short slice of time their power over each single men who wants them is nearly unlimited. But would you trade your whole life for 5 years of power over guys you don't care about?
And it's not really true that they have power in a global sense, it's only in each of these 1-on-1 encounters with potential marriage partners. On the global scale requirements like beauty and social standards are higher and the push to marriage is also stronger than for men.
So this "has backfired on men" should be read as "has decreased the huge advantage of men to become only a big advantage for men".
[+] [-] snowwrestler|10 years ago|reply
I think this is because men experience the power of female sexual choice first-hand during adolescence. It's a time of crazy emotions in general, and none crazier than those related to love and sex. It can seem like your entire happiness is dependent on whether a particular girl likes you back. That is memorable.
(Of course, women experience the same things during adolescence. Very few feel powerful during that time...they feel vulnerable just like the guys.)
Meanwhile, men do not directly experience the power of social structures that prefer them. Instead what they experience is a relative absence of barriers that present themselves to women. And how easy is it to notice the absence of something you've never experienced? Not easy at all.
It's very difficult in general for humans to empathize with experiences that they've never had themselves. David Foster Wallace discussed this memorably in his "this is water" speech.
[+] [-] stephengillie|10 years ago|reply
> Consider Cai Li (who asked her real name not be used in this article), a 34-year-old marketing executive in Shanghai: she is smart, engaging, hip and attractive. She is also the divorced mother of an 8-year-old girl. When she caught her husband, a Taiwanese businessman, philandering five years ago, she didn't hesitate. "I divorced him as soon as I could," she says. "He was shocked. He thought I wasn't serious, that I wouldn't do it because of our daughter. I said, 'You'll see'. And within a week I had filed the papers [for divorce]. And why wouldn't I? Why should I put up with that? I have parents here in Shanghai who help take care of my daughter, I had a good job. Plus, if I want to get remarried, it's not as if there's a shortage of men, even at my age, who would be interested. [My ex] was crazy to think I was going to stick around."
> The only problem for Cai was that her parents sided with her ex. "They had a typical Chinese reaction. They said, 'Oh come on, he probably won't do it again. It's not that big a deal anyway'," she says. "It was a generational attitude. When they were young, people put up with it, I guess. But I told them, not now. I was really angry. I put my foot down. Things are different now."
Is this one woman an exception?
[+] [-] mc32|10 years ago|reply
Now, with regard to men in cities, if they could only subject themselves to the injustice of marrying a mate from the countryside, they would not have a problem, but for whatever reason, a city reared mate it must be, so cry me a river.
[+] [-] mreiland|10 years ago|reply
Which is it?
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|10 years ago|reply
Korea went through the same cycle: too many kids in the 70s, got everyone cut back, and then they went over a demographic cliff and now have to beg couples to have more kids today.
[+] [-] baldfat|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NoMoreNicksLeft|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peter303|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meesterdude|10 years ago|reply
Goverment: "Stop making so many babies! that's it, just one per couple."
Citizens: "well, if we can only have one, we better make sure it's a boy!"
What could go wrong?
Yes, woman are gaining some upper hand here; and thats good. But it's not because of a change of outlooks or perspectives of the people, it's simply out of scarcity of the gender.
And what happens when there aren't enough women to go around? why, they import them of course! And by import I mean sex slavery and arranged marriages.
"life...finds a way..." to keep on fuckin'
[+] [-] meric|10 years ago|reply
"One-child policy" Bad policy.
"Woman gaining upper hand" Yay.
<Insert unintended consequence> Yeah, China's screwed.
I'll wait and see.
[+] [-] mrweasel|10 years ago|reply
I get the feeling that the people who invented the "One child policy" where at a different stage in civilization/education/whatever you call, than the people for whom they made the rule. So they didn't even consider that the public might choose to get rid of their girls.
China has been extremely focus on reaching the western standards of living, but their culture haven't been able to keep up. I think it's great that they addressed the issue of over-population, something that a country like India has failed to do. Their error was that they didn't try to bring about lower birth rates though education and welfare programs and instead opted for punishment. The Chinese where given an incentive to abort girls, so in hindsight it's not a surprise that things have worked out the way they have.
[+] [-] baldfat|10 years ago|reply
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/world/europe/germany-fight...
[+] [-] transfire|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkyle|10 years ago|reply
They are also most likely to be financially insecure. And that insecurity is due to the lack of participation in the rearing and responsibility for their child by the father.
In short, the rising rate of single parenthood in the U.S. is not an outcome of empowering women and equal rights. It's a consequence of abject poverty and lack of accountability by fathers.
[1] http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/discouraged-dad...
[+] [-] jccalhoun|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j_m_b|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LiweiZ|10 years ago|reply
[edit]: typo
[+] [-] crimsonalucard|10 years ago|reply
In california we're trying to build a high speed train across the state. It's taking years for this happen with no end in sight. It's largely due to lack of funding and a lot of decentralized opposition.
In china, thanks to centralized planning, they can build the same public project in two years.
[+] [-] glesica|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snowwrestler|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mullen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Blackthorn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cletus|10 years ago|reply
It's really depressing that such an anachronistic notion (of carrying on your family's "name") is still so prevalent that it results in tens of millions of abortions of unwanted girls.
My only hope is that 20 or 30 years from now when the children of this generation of Chinese are themselves looking to marry and have families that such misogyny has fallen by the wayside.
[+] [-] baldfat|10 years ago|reply
1. Sweden offers the most generous maternity leave policy, with 56 weeks paid at 80 percent of citizens' salary, and 13 additional weeks paid at a fixed rate thereafter.
2. In some central European countries, the standard maternity leave is three years.
3. Adoptive parents and same-sex parents get parental leave in the U.K., Canada, France, and yes, Sweden.
4. There is still zero mandated maternity leave benefits in the U.S., although companies with over 50 employees are obligated to offer three months of unpaid time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
5. This makes the U.S. one of only four countries in the world with no required paid maternity leave. The others are Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea.
http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2013/05/these-9-countrie...
[+] [-] baldfat|10 years ago|reply
After peaking seven years ago, at 128 million, Japan's population has been falling — and is on a path to decline by about a million people a year. By 2060, the government estimates, there will be just 87 million people in Japan; nearly half of them will be over 65. Without a dramatic change in either the birthrate or its restrictive immigration policies, Japan simply won't have enough workers to support its retirees, and will enter a demographic death spiral. Yet the babies aren't coming.
http://theweek.com/articles/453219/everything-need-know-abou...
[+] [-] newuser88273|10 years ago|reply
If they're right, they'd win so big compared to "us" that in fact the biggest obstacle they're facing might be that "we" won't allow them to win the bet.
[+] [-] jstalin|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ausjke|10 years ago|reply
1. more man than woman, about 50Million man will probably never have a wife. Really, either legalize prostitution, or somehow have a war, otherwise you will read more news about rape.
2. the world is flat, woman are better educated and they do not want to marry a man that is inferior, they would rather stay unmarried if no good fit can be found, that further worsen the situation. low-class men are the real losers, in a large amount.
3. people do get married do not want to have more than one baby due to various reasons listed by others here.
[+] [-] cyorir|10 years ago|reply
2) In China, sadly, there is still a gender imbalance in education. For example, the literacy rate is lower, on the whole, for women.[2] While a lot of attention is given to the demographic challenges facing men in China as a result of the one child policy, it is important to also recognize the challenges faced by women in China as well.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#Prevalence [1] http://www.ncdsv.org/images/nnfr_partnerviolence_a20-yearlit... [2] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
[+] [-] virmundi|10 years ago|reply
For the first, the supply of men will decrease. It might decrease enough to cause a more traditional relationship between the genders. The surviving heterosexual group will have more power since the demand is probably constant.
The second, is probably more how many picture the 1960s and 1970s in the US. Men getting the milk for free. In many ways if all you want is milk, so to speak, you get off quite well in the process. It is a selfish take on life, but oh well we'll all just matter anyway.
Third, this is the sanest approach. It allows the species to succeed. It also seems to make the major genetic predisposition of the species.
Only time will tell.
[+] [-] peter303|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rm_-rf_slash|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j_m_b|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saiya-jin|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gadders|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dctoedt|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crimsonalucard|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frankosaurus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peter303|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justabystander|10 years ago|reply
It is culturally expected of the man to take care of his parents and grandparents. It's a very gendered role, so a daughter might not accept that responsibility. Typically the son's loyalty is expected to go to his own parents, while the daughters loyalty would transfer to her husband's family. But sometimes when she got married her husband would accept responsibility for her parents as well. But that places a significant burden on the man. It wasn't that big of a deal with multiple children - you could split up the parents and grandparents. But with one child, you now have to hope that one can take care of six adults and a spouse. It's described as the 4-2-1 problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#.22Four-two-o...).
There was an article on modern Chinese women not wanting to support their parents that I encountered a while back (though I think it was older), but I'm having problems finding it. This might change, though, as new legislation surfaced recently making it a legal burden for all children (http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/chinese-laws-requ...). This should help alleviate a lot of retirement care concerns.
Some rural areas have policies where new children are greeted with extra land. This was returned to the government upon marriage for girls, while it stayed with the family for boys. Ostensibly this was to prevent the land from going to some city dweller. It's a policy littered with faulty assumptions, but that extra acre of land could be pretty tempting to a rural villager. (http://research-china.blogspot.com/2005/10/why-girls-are-aba...). Outdated ownership and inheritance policies are another cause for concern.
With the relaxing of the one-child policy, things got a lot better. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/07/as-china-s-...) Note that some parents are aborting boys for girls, now. But we can see that a lot (but not all) of the parents concern over the gender of their child can come from government policies and wanting a place to live in their declining years. Let's not try to force our own paradigms and logic on other cultures just because it's convenient. I'm not Chinese, but I still get frustrated when people judge their worth without considering Chinese values and cultural expectations. It's a lot more complex than an entire country hating women. Selfishness is a much more reasonable assumption. Assuming it's selfish to want your kids to take care of you when you took care of your parents and grandparents. I'd say it's more like perpetuating the cultural machine.
We've also completely ignored the historical relevance of China's bride price (http://qz.com/92267/in-a-reversal-of-the-dowry-chinese-men-p... and http://www.npr.org/2013/04/23/176326713/for-chinese-women-ma...). Surely the fact that it's been culturally expected to pay your wife's parents to be eligible for marriage has influence somewhere. Notably, a son (and thus continuing financial support) was still considered more desirable than a one-time payment. A daughter might make you rich, but a son would make sure you always had a place to live. Because if he didn't, society would make life very difficult for him.
Perhaps this would all be a bit better if parents weren't planning their children's lives (from their careers and educations down to their sex) based on their own wants and needs. But being old doesn't really make you wise.
[+] [-] caskance|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wahsd|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nodata|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkyle|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmnicolas|10 years ago|reply