Selections from Mei Fong (Wall Street Journal)

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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]With the next round of Olympics coming to London, since Mei Fong wrote about the summer games in Beijing, one might want to note how the Chinese women athletes are doing. Apparently, during the games that Fong covered, the Chinese women athletes were receiving more government funding because they won more medals than men. With the role of women under Communist China being "equal to men" under Mao, standing tall on the winner's platform is no stretch for the Chinese women. I have the feeling, the women typically had to work hard in the fields, shoulder to shoulder with the men, and still work hard in the home. I somehow doubt all was equal-equal, having read Lisa See's recent book set during the Revolution.[/font]

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"Women are equal to men" under Mao is great, but in Shanghai women are the queen in the house. The husband is the cook and the house keeper on the house. I have friends from Shanghai who me told me that Chinese women loves to marry husband from Shanghai because they do not need to do the cooking and cleaning at home.

I will introduce the old Chinese customs to the students, how it has changed from boys are more important than girls, to boys and girls are equal. I will introduce how the boys and girls in the class are the same and how they are different by using the Venn Diagram. I will introduce that pink is not only for girls, or blue is not only for boys. I will read "Williams Doll" to the class, and introduce that dolls can be played by both boys and girls, because boys can be father when they grow up, and they need to help the mother in taking care of the baby. I will introduce to my students that sports can be played by both boys and girls. Students will learn not to stereotype boys and girls. Both boys and girls can do anything they wanted without people laughing at them.
edited by rliao on 6/21/2012

Rliao my guess is that in big cities where women go to work outside the house the distribution of labor at home naturally falls into a more egalitarian divide. It is unreasonable to expect women or men to assume sole responsability for the domestic tasks. On the other hand it is refreshing to hear that women feel free to boast about their husbands' contribution in the home :-)