In my last year in middle school, I moved into a dorm with Andra. Although I don’t remember most of the things that happened while we were together, the time when she cried is still clear in my memory. I accidentally saw a text from Andra’s mom to my mom. The text was not a text about school, not about a grade. Instead, it read “I am finally pregnant with a boy. I have always wanted a boy. Boys are great.” The anger made my fingers lose control and started shaking. I threw the phone on the sofa, walked into Andra’s room without knocking, and repeated what I saw to Andra. She opened her shaky lips, asked if what I read was real, and kept telling me what I saw was not true. She cried and called me a liar, but no matter how much she didn’t want to believe it, these cruel words stayed carved in her mind. I remember her eyes full of tears and the disappearance of a whole box of tissues. The text deeply hurted me and made me feel sad for Andra. How vulnerable it is to be a girl in a family that values boys more than girls.
Preferring boys to girls is still common in Chinese society. In primitive and patriarchal society 4000 years ago, women played a subordinate role to men because of their physical disadvantages in farming and hunting. Later during the Qing dynasty (1636~1912), most women supported the family by giving birth to children. In Chinese society today, women face fewer obstacles than in the past as China has achieved rapid technology development that has improved people’s lives. Both sexes enjoy more equal access to education and inheritance is distributed more equally between sons and daughters.
The main reason why China is still facing gender disparity and preference for sons can be traced back to the rural basis of Chinese society. The conventional way of supporting lives in rural areas was through subsistence farming. Men in the family usually did farming and heavy labor because they had more physical strength and stamina working in the fields on average than women, while women were in charge of the chores at home. The role of men and women were also different as people tended to assume that a son had the responsibility to look after the elderly, and a daughter was supposed to belong to her husband’s family after marriage. Parents hoped for sons rather than daughters to ensure that someone would fulfill filial piety when they got older. In Chinese society, deeply influenced by Confucianism, women were inculcated to follow the “three obediences and four virtues”, which taught women to behave modestly and morally and follow the guidance provided by their fathers, husbands, and even sons. Starting in 2001, the government began to fully implement the one-child policy. Parents in the urban areas would pay fines and lose their jobs if they decided to have more than one child. Since young girls are worthless in Chinese rural area according to Wu Rongrong, a Chinese lead feminist, the one-child policy further increases the abortion rate. Female fetuses are aborted more often than male fetuses, which is evidenced by the 2005 data that more than 1.1 million excess births of boys occurred.
Son preference has had negative consequences on both men and women. Women suffer from diminished self-confidence and men struggle to take care of themselves later in life. Son preference also plays a role in domestic violence. When males are taught to dominate the family and receive respect at all times, some of the males receive the message that they have the right to exert physical and psychological control over their families in the future. A small percentage use that as an excuse to harm their female partners. Some fathers even take their anger out on their daughters.
Fortunately, son preference has been lessening with the idea of gender equality in Chinese constitution founded in 1949 (Fincher, 2018). On a local scale, many movements regarding gender equality were flourishing. One notable example was the gender education forum launched by Professor Ai at Sun Yat-sen University in 2003 to organize activities aimed to eliminate gender stereotypes and promote liberation for women. As China became more involved on the world stage, Western ideas began to shape Chinese people’s perspectives on women’s status and rights. They realized that women should have the same opportunities as men. Parents further recognized the importance of developing girls to their fullest potential and helping them pursue their career and academic goals. Another important reason for declining preference for sons is that people in rural areas are less reliant on subsistence agriculture. Since the government’s policy to alleviate poverty in 2013, the living conditions of 85% of the rural population greatly improved, fewer people plant crops by hand. Most Chinese people today place much less emphasis on physical strength than in days past. The mind, a plane on which women and men are able to compete on more equal terms, is seen as more valuable than the body.
Fully eliminating son preference in China is a matter of changing the way people think. Although the situation is improving for females, inequality still appears, including in the work space. It is only through continuous empowerment for girls that we will see a brighter future.
