Jialin Tang: Today’s society is increasingly advocating equality between men and women, and various media and TV programs are emphasizing equality between men and women, but is it really equal now? I do not think so. From time to time, there are news reports about women being violated. Some were assaulted while walking at night, and some were injured by ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands. Whenever this kind of news appears, we can see how malicious the society that talks about gender equality is against women. At this time, some people say that it is because women are exposed to dress and seduce men to commit crimes. Some people will say that good girls will not walk on the road alone so late. When a woman is domestically abused, someone will say that it must be the woman who cheated on her husband before she was domestically abused by her husband. When society has such great malice towards women, on the contrary it is extremely tolerant towards men. When a man cheats, someone will say to give him another chance, he didn’t mean it. When a male celebrity has derailed and avoided the limelight for a few months, he can reappear in people’s sight, but it is not so easy for women. I think this kind of injustice is systemic injustice because this kind of prejudice comes from the atmosphere of the whole society. I do not think people should arbitrarily express the guilt of the victim before the matter is not settled. Society should give women more tolerance.

Ella Feng: I agree with you! It reminds me of an Art installation show called “What Were You Wearing?” which displays the clothes the victims of sexual crimes were wearing. Some of the victims were wearing hoodies, t-shirts and jeans, it promotes a conversation with the audience about the problem of victim-blaming and sexism toward women. I agree with you that there is injustice for female celebrities, especially in China, but I think celebrities have platforms and resources to get their voice heard. That’s why I want to go on to discuss more about the discrimination against female employees during their job-hunting and their careers. I am not sure if gender causes differences in applying for a job in other countries. However, the differences in job opportunities and salaries in China between gender is still common. I always wonder about the reason. After doing research and hearing experience from other people, I have drawn two conclusions. Firstly, people assume that men have better physical strength than women, which means they think men may work more effectively than women and thus bring more profits to the company. It causes companies to think it is less beneficial to recruit women. Secondly, women’s maternity leave during her work time will lead to a vacancy in the office. In this case, companies need to spend additional time, effort and costs to hire another employee to take her place during women’s maternity leave. In my opinion, the government should establish policies to intervene with companies that make sure equally among genders or give certain welfare to working females. However, because China has a relatively large population, there is still a long way to go before this situation gets improved.

Jialin Tang: Wow, I agree with some of your views. I think gender discrimination in the workplace is very common throughout the world because I have seen it in film and television works in various countries. After all, film and television works are based on life. I think your point of view is very interesting. There are indeed these physiological differences between men and women, but what we need to pay more attention to is the injustice in the workplace caused by going beyond this point. I think that in addition to physiological differences, there are some injustices caused by prejudice. They think that the female employee is not good. Although a woman may have shown quite good work ability, she has lost the opportunity for promotion and salary just because she is a woman.

Ella Feng: I couldn’t agree with you more. I definitely think gender discrimination at the workplace in other countries exists too, and prejudice causes injustices for female employees. Your thoughts on this made me think about some time on the TV and in daily life, I hear sentences like “You fight like a girl”, “You should man up!”. There is prejudice in those sentences because people saying these are assuming women are weaker and less brave. They might not realize the prejudice in their language, but if we don’t point it out and address the problem, languages will become the weapon of injustice and potentially twist people’s ideas generation to generation.

Wentao Liu: I have a similar opinion to you. For a long time, I thought a question that if “ladies first” was sex discrimination? Finally, I got an answer- Yes! I believe that “ladies first” is definitely a form of sexism. Because in the “ladies first” scenario, we are not looking at the other person’s abilities but the other person’s gender. Even if it is a universally appreciated virtue in society and does not directly discriminate against women or even give preferential treatment in the form of expression, such behavior will aggravate the stereotype of “women need to be protected” or “women are weak in ability”. We know, of course, that “ladies first” is out of the kindness and gentlemen, but even this kind of discrimination seems harmless on the surface, it silently limits women’s freedom. The “ladies first” phenomenon originated in Europe, where women were considered the weaker sex, and men needed gentlemen to “protect” their female companions from doing some things that were too masculine, such as opening doors forcefully. However, in modern life, this scenario does not always apply. Can you imagine such a scene? A slight man, with a high fever and even no strength to pull the door open, opens the door to a tall, healthy woman who can easily run ten miles and gracefully says “hi, my lady, you first”. Such a scene must be very ridiculous and amazing. In this case, we can easily find that “ladies first” is not always rational because it takes gender as the only criterion and assumes that women are the weaker gender which we seem as sex discrimination. On the contrary, I think that it makes more sense to change “ladies first” to “weak first” or “the people in need of help first”. For example, if one day, a woman friend has very heavy books in her hand, and I open the door for her and say “after you”, it is not because of her gender but because she needs my help. Just like if one day I need help, I also want a friend to open the door for me and say, “you first”. In this case, I believe that no one should be restricted by others because of their gender, and everyone should have the same opportunity to exert their talents, instead of being denied by others because of their gender.

Ella Feng: Yes, Wentao! Our points are very similar because these words and actions usually meant no harm. The “ladies first” example you are saying is meant to be polite and respectful, but by considering it in a social injustice way I absolutely agree with you it is also sexism. By pursuing justice and equality for all people, we should treat all genders not only with the same rights but also as they have the same abilities. It is very interesting that you mentioned masculinity. I find people often use the word masculinity to address men, but as we know women can be masculine too. Similarly, the word beautiful usually addresses women. These word choices based on gender differences are simple and harmless but it can cause segregation which leads to prejudice.

Wentao Liu: As you said, in modern life, what we pursue is the same rights for all genders. I want to discuss another point that actually I think the woman is not the only sex that received sex discrimination. I once read a piece of news that Britain’s Prince George has been mocked by ABC host, Lara Spencer, just because of his love in ballet. On the show, she sneered and said, “let us see how long he can hold on.” In the article called “Lara Spencer apologizes for ridiculing Prince George and Ballet, but the damage has been done”, it shows that it is very widespread for society to keep the prejudice to the male dancers. Under these prejudices, I think that the reason is that people’s stereotype of man is masculine. However, ridicule and prejudice, because some people are different from stereotypes, is unacceptable. Because if society acquiesces that mockery is true, there will be more boys and girls who will be ridiculed, bullied, and eventually given up on things they really love because of prejudice and discrimination. Gender stereotypes and prejudices in education can prevent children from developing freely. To make this wrong to be changed, what we should do is to build the equality concept and try to find self-worth regardless of gender. When we comment on the behavior of others, we should focus on the meaning of the act itself but not focus on who did it.

Jialin Tang: It’s interesting. I think your point of view can warn readers that sexism sometimes goes both ways. Now when people talk about gender discrimination, most people think of discrimination against women by men. Few people think that women sometimes discriminate against men. I have seen discrimination against male dancers a few years ago, but this has never been known to most people. Sadly, if it were not for the British Prince George’s love of ballet, this might still be unknown. In fact, it is common for men to be discriminated against by women in life. Especially for boys who are not very masculine and good. When I was in junior high school, a male friend was ridiculed by some girls for being too feminine because he was too gentle with others. To be honest, I have never associated this with sexism, but the point you gave reminds me that sexism is two-way.

Wentao Liu: From what we discussed, sexism is still a common phenomenon in our life. As for gender discrimination, I think it comes down to the fact that people with vested interests don’t want to lose their own interests, so they use their own advantages to suppress the weaker party, which is not significantly different from all other kinds of discrimination. These words are similar to the definition of “One” to “Others” that we learn in the course. As the words said by Martin Luther King, Jr. in the letter from Birmingham Jail, “History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily” and freedom is never voluntarily by the oppressor. Although it is used against racism, I think it can still be validated in other discriminatory practices, especially in sexism. All the prejudices are caused by ignorance and stubbornness. With the progress of the times, there are still many people who believe in the supremacy of men and turn a blind eye to the women’s protests. This kind of ridiculousness in people’s subjective consciousness is the main problem that we should overcome to solve sexism in society.

Ella Feng: I think it is necessary that we have a group conversation about such an important issue, it not only brings more dynamic views to the topic but also it reminds us how easily we can ignore the inequality among us in daily life.

Wentao Liu, Jialin Tang, Ella Feng:

Thank you for listening. Bye. Have a good day. : )

Reference:

Sarah L. Kaufman. “Lara Spencer apologizes for ridiculing Prince George and Ballet, but the damage has been done” August 26, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/lara-spencer-apologizes-for-ridiculing-prince-george-and-ballet-but-the-damage-has-been-done/2019/08/26/989ed7d2-c798-11e9-8067-196d9f17af68_story.html

Andželika. “Victims Who Were Told That Their Clothing Got Them Sexually Assaulted Display What They Were Wearing.” Bored Panda, 1 Jan. 1969.https://www.boredpanda.com/what-were-you-wearing-sexual-assault-art-exhibition/?utm_source=google.

Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” 16 April 1963

Image references:

https://images.app.goo.gl/fYQVrGrN8D3qDM9p6

https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/breezejmu.org/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/4/dd/4dda868e-c752-11e8-a8d6-d3b0dc285c9d/5bb532de379ca.image.png?resize=525%2C630

This week we will be reading the book The Leavers by Lisa Ko. In this book, the heroine, Polly, sneaked to the United States in order to seek a better life. However, her dream was shattered later, and she finally chose a life beyond her control. This phenomenon reminds me of those migrant workers from the countryside in the city. The development of urbanization leads to the socioeconomic class gap and creates the prejudices. In this case, I try to discuss the reason for the group prejudice and discrimination-grinding interaction between the migrant workers and city residents.

Karen C Seto (2013), the professor from Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, points out that “in 1950 13% of Chinese people lived in cities. By 2010, the urban share of the population had grown to 45%; It’s projected to reach 60% by 2030”. As a matter of fact, with the rapid development of urbanization, more and more rural residents move to the city to seek a better life. Yusuf (2009) said in his article “Off to the City”: “According to research conducted by Barry Bosworth and Susan M.Collins, China’s productivity averaged 4 percent growth annually between 1993 and 2004 and contributed roughly 40 percent of GDP growth.” Better economic development means more conditions of employment and other more social benefits than rural residents. All these advantages make the gap between urban residents and rural residents larger and larger and thus produce a lot of cultural prejudice. This is also why the heroine is so excited when she can work in Fuzhou, a city in China.

In fact, urban and rural areas have increasingly formed two opposing cultures. This prejudice caused by two different cultures is pervasive. I think that the government should take some measures to ease the conflict between the two areas. By knowing these backgrounds, I think it can be helpful for us to better understand the content of the article in a comprehensive way.

Reference

Seto, Karen. C. (2013) “What Should We Understand about Urbanization in China?” – November 1. <http://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/what-should-we-understand-about-urbanization-china>

Yusuf, Shahid. (2009), “Off to the City” – World Bank Institute, the World Bank. May 1. <http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/off-to-the-city/>