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Gender inequality to the fore
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IS there any appropriate age for the urban and educated women to get married? In China, it is probably before 27. If they are without a partner after that age, they are labeled “leftover,” and therefore “unwanted.” As time ticks by, there are worries that they are passing the “best child-bearing age” or may no longer be able to give birth.
Though there is no government policy for women to get married before 27, the parental pressure is so strong that many Chinese women have left their careers and forfeited their rights to home ownership for the sake of marriage, according to Leta Hong Fincher, author of “Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China.”
“This is really damaging,” Fincher said at a book reading activity during the Shanghai International Festival earlier this month. “In order to avoid becoming ‘leftover,’ many of them give up too much bargaining power to get into marriage, out of fear that they will never find a husband otherwise.”
The fear then feeds into a related phenomenon of how Chinese women have been shut out of the biggest accumulation of residential real-estate wealth in history, which is a dramatic rollback of rights and gains made in China’s modern era, Fincher argues in her book.
The Chinese tradition has it that man needs a house to get married and woman takes care of the “zhuangxiu,” or home decoration, furnishing and everything else.
So many parents with sons save a lot of money to buy expensive homes for their son without actually realizing they discriminate against their own daughters in favor of the sons.
“As I looked at China’s residential real estate market, especially during the period between 1999 and 2010, I found out that most marital properties were registered under men’s names,” Fincher said. “Considering the appreciation of home values in recent years, women largely missed out on that.”
According to Fincher, many women fought very hard to earn their lawful property rights before marriage, but the men’s family — and even their own parents — often pressure them to give up these rights before the wedding.
They can’t walk away from the men because they live in the perpetual fear that they would grow old and become one of the many “leftover women.”
“The problem with China is that the house is so expensive. Women, by and large, are contributing the mortgage payment.
And even if they are not directly contributing to either the down payment or the mortgage payment, maybe the couple is living on this woman’s income and the men’s money is going to pay the mortgage. There are so many ways in which women are contributing to the purchase of property, but it is not being counted. They need to stand up for their rights,” Fincher said.
The book focuses primarily on the consequences of the emerging and prevailing use of the Chinese buzzword “shengnv” since 2007 and the unprecedented gender inequality in wealth created by China’s urban real-estate boom.
It is a result of two and a half years research conducted by Fincher during her PhD program in Sociology at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Fincher sat down with Shanghai Daily and shared some of her thoughts on the gender norms in China.
How did you get interested in this phenomenon called “shengnu”?
During my course when I was doing my Sociology PhD in Tsinghua, I got to observe some Beijing real estate agencies. I interviewed people and went to some of them to learn about the gender norms in home buying. I found it was often men who had their names on the property. Then I started to question the other side: why women are not on their property deals? During interviews with women, I came upon the phrase “shengnv,” meaning leftover women.
Do you think “shengnu” is a unique social-cultural phenomenon in China?
The term in particular is unique in China. But there are other terms used to insult single women who are older in other countries around the world like the English word spinster. In Japan they are often called “Christmas cake.” Chinese people are not going to stop using the term “shengnu,” as it is already part of the common vocabulary. It is so commonly used that people don’t even think about where it came from. But the term itself is insulting.
Why would you say the prevailing use of the term “shengnu” is damaging for China’s long-term economic growth?
Because it stereotypes the single educated women, telling them that they shouldn’t excel, they shouldn’t study so hard otherwise, they are likely to be leftover like spoiled food, which must be discarded.
Before the communist revolution, there was a very high female literacy rate. Now women are better educated, which is good for the economy.
These women should be employed and they should be put to use in the workforce to help boost China’s economic growth.
What’s your suggestion to the “shengnu” in China?
Always marry for love, not for the fear of being leftover. In one sense, “leftover” women do not exist. Second, they should be more aware of their rights. One thing that I am hoping to do with my book is to make women see that it is perfectly legal to “add your name on your property deal.” Women should insist on their economic rights when they get married.
What do you think the government should do to push for gender equality?
There are many things the government can do to make life easier for women. For example, let single women have babies; abolish family restrictions all together; introduce policies to prevent gender discrimination in hiring, etc.
One positive move I see now is the anti-domestic violence draft law. I hope that becomes an actual law in China very soon.
On the other hand, the government should not restrict the idea of “family” at all. You just look globally, and ordinary people’s ideas about families are changing.
There isn’t a definition of what makes an ideal family, because there are so many forms of families.
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