Leftover Ladies Can’t Freeze Their Eggs

I attended Shanghai International Literary Festival yesterday to hear Leta Hong Fincher talk about her latest book titled Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China:

A century ago, Chinese feminists fighting for the emancipation of women helped spark the Republican Revolution, which overthrew the Qing empire.

After China’s Communist revolution of 1949, Chairman Mao famously proclaimed that “women hold up half the sky.”

In the early years of the People’s Republic, the Communist Party sought to transform gender relations with expansive initiatives such as assigning urban women jobs in the planned economy. Yet those gains are now being eroded in China’s post-socialist era.

Contrary to many claims made in the mainstream media, women in China have experienced a dramatic rollback of many rights and gains relative to men.

Leftover Women debunks the popular myth that women have fared well as a result of post-socialist China’s economic reforms and breakneck growth.

Laying out the structural discrimination against women in China will speak to broader problems with China’s economy, politics, and development.

The following excerpt explains what a “Leftover Woman” is:

Sheng nu (剩女; shèngnǚ means “leftover women” or “leftover ladies”) is a derogatory term made popular by the All-China Women’s Federation that classifies women who remain unmarried after 27 years old.

Xu Xiaomin of The China Daily described the sheng nus as “a social force to be reckoned with” while others have argued the term should be taken as a positive to mean “successful women”. The slang term, 3S or 3S Women, meaning “single, seventies (1970s), and stuck” has also been used in place of sheng nu. The equivalent term for men, guang gun (光棍) meaning bare branches, is used to refer to men who do not marry and thus do not add ‘branches’ to the family tree.

In March 2011, the All-China Women’s Federation posted a controversial article titled ‘Leftover Women Do Not Deserve Our Sympathy’ shortly after International Women’s Day.

An excerpt states, “Pretty girls do not need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family. But girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult” and “These girls hope to further their education in order to increase their competitiveness. The tragedy is, they don’t realise that as women age, they are worth less and less. So by the time they get their MA orPhD, they are already old — like yellowed pearls.”

Leftover Women is a scaremonger campaign focused on single, urban educated ladies over the age of 27. The state has been using this nasty title to insult single women in order to push them to get married young for fear of never being able to find a husband.

Among my Chinese female friends over the age of 25, they are fully aware that mom and dad are going to start laying on the pressure and fear mongering of “being leftover” and it’s frustrating, insulting and makes them feel like they are making their parents “lose face”.

So your basic value in life as a Chinese woman to the state is getting married young (take one of our single men — there are over 30 million men more than women), procreation (make a baby, that contributes to dealing with the aging population which is now a problem because of the One Child Policy) and buying a house in China under your husband’s name (contributing to the real estate economy) regardless of if you are on board with it. The state is really benefiting from those ovaries.

In the past couple of years, more and more women are tired of this discrimination and standing up against the unfairness. Young Chinese men and women in their twenties are progressive and if left to their own devises would like to marry in their 30s or 40s or not at all and have children later — like the rest of the world. Except, the state and their parents and grandparents are coming down hard on them. Even threatening them. Big time. And, even if you are gay (man or woman), you are expected by your family to produce a child.

And that’s why this whole “Leftover Women” campaign comes in which is basic government propaganda aimed at trying to control the bodies of women — particularly the urban educated ones.

On average in T1 cities, more women have Bachelor and Masters degrees and in many cases they are making more money than their husbands or male counterparts.

The state thinks the Chinese population “quality” (suzhi) is low and want to upgrade the population with the children of these urban, educated women.

Now you should have two kids, not just one in order to upgrade “population quality” — an idea that is based on both eugenics (genetic quality) and class. The problem for the state, is that educated women are not buying it.

I’ve always been interested in this topic, so it was great to have Leta, who has studied it in detail, explain the background.

In terms of the women’s rights in China, the Communists created the highest women’s labor force in the world up until then, but this decreased since reform. When the One Child Policy was brought in, the draconian measures that were taken to enforce the policy went directly against the rights of women (including forced abortions) and the relative freedoms the communists had provided to women.

Fast-forward a few decades later and now in the mid-2000 real estate boom, most property is owned by men. And by recent social standards, a man must own a home to attract a bride, which is, as Leta explained, a new phenomenon linked with the real estate market.

In 2011 the judicial court reinterpreted the marriage law — essentially clarifying property ownership within marriage. Before 2011, property was joint owned between married couples, but after 2011, the one whose name is on the deed gets the property and that’s now the husband only, even though in most cases the wife (and her family) contributes heavily to the purchase. This was super sneaky, really.

This means that women have no rights to the house if the marriage dissolves, unless she can produce documentation showing she contributed financially to the purchase of the home. But this is mostly not the case. So essentially, if she wants a divorce or is in an abusive marriage, if she leaves, she is homeless and needs to move back in with mom and dad. And there is shame attached to that, obviously.

Property rights in the Song Dynasty (1000 years ago) were better for women in China then now, says Leta.

One unexpectedly good thing about the One Child Policy is that it led to families investing heavily in their one daughter — in her education and financially towards her future success. This is in spite of the fact that the preference was a son, which is why there are 30 million more men than women now, as unfortunately girl children were often aborted.

However, those daughters that made it to be the family’s one child did not need to compete with a brother for parental investment, thanks to the OCP. But the downside of this, from the state’s perspective, is a rise in Chinese feminism — women who would like to delay marriage, possibly reject it and many don’t want to have children. Basically — single, leftover and don’t give any fucks.

Keep in mind, that although China has opened up to the two child policy now, single women ARE NOT allowed to have children (you have to be married). No single mammas allowed. If they do have a child without being married, they will be hit with a serious fine (half to 6 times a year’s salary), and their child won’t get hukou (which is basically a birth certificate or state household registration that allows you to go to school). So your kid also can’t go to school? WTF. It’s hard enough being a single mom without child support, but to top it off , the state fines you?

If the state is serious about encouraging urban educated women to procreate, why are they not offering baby bonuses or financial incentives, as other countries do to encourage population growth? In heavily fining single mothers, yet pushing the Leftover Women propaganda, what indeed is the incentive, beyond family pressure, to procreate for the state? I’m just thinking of that recent Danish campaign “Do it for Denmark,” which encourages Danish women to have a baby, literally, for Denmark. Take it for the team, ladies.

Another serious fertility rights violation is that women in China are also NOT allowed to freeze their eggs. I guess, this is because the state wants them to marry young and have babies young. So with more men now then women in China, the state NEEDS these girls to get married — even marry down as necessary. Cause if the men can’t find wifes, there could be civil unrest, riots, testosterone charge male rage? If the girls get married before they are old enough to get to choose, or just young and inexperienced enough, then their standards and expectations are less. Oh, and they lose their home if they divorce. Seeing a pattern?

Recently in the news, when an unmarried, famous 41 year-old Chinese actress, 徐静蕾 Xu Jinglei, went to the United States and had her eggs frozen, there was a social media uproar.

Even Han Han who had been fairly silent recently on Weibo jumped in to support her asking the question: “Why does a woman need to be married to have a child?” Fair question, right?

Will the Two-Child Policy benefit women in China? This is THE big question.

Leta is pessimistic. Now girls will have to compete with a brother and lose out when it comes to parental and financial support, while before with only one child, their families went all in for them. Now, if they have to choose son over daughter for who goes to uni and gets a house bought, ummm, well its not going to be little sis.

And will the pressure to have two children now when life is already fraught with competition, just make it worse for the urban educated career women? Time will tell.

Certainly, modern China has a ways to go when in comes to laws to protect women’s property rights, protection against domestic violence, protecting sex workers, accepting LGBTs, and ultimately a woman’s choices in love, lifestyle and reproduction.

Anyways, let’s not totally demonize China — women’s rights worldwide have a long way to go and China certainly is more progressive than many other countries. India, being just one example.

And the whole idea of scaring women about being a single “old hag” or “old maid” or “cougar” when she is over 30 is as old in Western culture as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It’s hardly a Chinese state invention. Its just basic female suppression.

To all the single ladies brave enough to break the mold and create their own path, it’s certainly not easy with all the pressures from the state and propaganda campaigns that influence your own parent’s perception of you.

BUT, you can always tell your mom to either give you a break, or have her pay the exorbitant price to have your “aging” eggs frozen in Taiwan, Japan or the US.

On a more random and final note to close off on:

It was only in 1983 that China legalized marriage with foreigners and interracial marriage. BUT considering the US only legalized inter-racial marriage in 1967 (that’s insane, right?), this is hardly as backwards as it sounds.

And let’s not get into how Canada treated Chinese workers who built the railway — being paid peanuts and many losing their lives. These workers were eventually not even allowed to bring their families wives and children to our country.

The racism in Canada against Chinese even until 1940 (not being allowed to swim in “white” swimming pools) is a disgusting part of our country’s heritage that is largely not talked about. Essentially, Canada was using Chinese men as migrant slaves. Yet we pretend to not have supported slavery.

Alright, this rant is over. Cheers to progress. Let’s all keep working on it.