maybe in China.. but definitely not in all of the East
Not saying things might not be generally 'equal' for women in China now, but things are generally 'equal' for women in the West. For certain values of generally.
Seems to me societies have traditionally objectified/oppressed women world over.
One unequivocally positive outcome of the communists winning over the nationalists that even an ardent anti-communist like Jung Chang will attest to was their gender equality reforms. The first and most symbolic act was a serious crackdown on foot binding.
My point wasn't that reform hasn't happened, my point was objecting to the casual generalization of China as currently superior to the West in gender equality--by demonstrating the concrete sexism of the past.
Having ruled out the past since both West and China infringe gratuitously, what do we really _know_ about gender equality in China in the present day?
And I am the sort of person for whom a gender equality rating is strongly influenced by high ratings in tolerance for homosexuality and other non-gender-norm labels.
A third of China's millionaires are female. We know concrete facts like that. Guanxi rules business in China, so it would have been very easy to keep women entirely out of the higher echelons had the culture been predisposed to do so. That said, there is still, for example, plenty of low-level sexual harassment against women that wouldn't be tolerated in most of the West.
My point about foot-binding might have been off-topic, actually; I was trying to demonstrate that both cultures have, err, regrets about gender inequality in the past.
One has to be careful comparing these things on a linear scale. But yes, I agree. Beyond the context of our immediate discussion, the equality of men and women in China is noteworthy because it contradicts the still-commonplace orientalist conception that Asian women are submissive.
Now we're getting a bit off-topic, so I'm going to close with the idea that women in China could still be considered largely submissive if the ratio is a third instead of a half if one were to really press the viewpoint asking "In what ways could gender equality improve?" but that's a bit of devil's advocacy I'm ready to let fall silent. ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sex_ratio_total_population...
Edit: check out that big red country on this one...: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Sex_ratio...
My original point was that equality should begin from start where infanticide shouldn't be allowed in this regard.
The likelihood is that the men will be absorbed into some type of military action, whether state-sponsored (invasion) or non-state (terrorism).
Horny young men with no conceivable outlet tend to listen to anyone who tells them what they want to hear.
China certainly has been liberalizing its gender laws at a faster clip than the west, which took the Women's Suffrage Movement several centuries.... but it's never been ahead of the curve.
After 1950 men were not permitted to own land either. :P
edit: In some ways China should really be looked at as two distinct demographics, urban and rural. They have vast different values that makes the country completely bipolar. The gender attitude among the urbanites are much more progressive, in some ways even more so than the west, while in the countryside they still practice infanticide.
It may have to do with the fact that the communist ideology campaigns mostly targeted the cities, because Mao feared a bourgeoisie counter-revolution, while he already had grass root support from the countryside, so he took it for granted.
No, the infanticide is not well-grounded, just reports.
I'm Chinese btw. I actually don't know anyone who buys these bags, I only see them on the streets occasionally. Giant wallets/strapless hand bags seem to be much more common among the middle-aged men. Most young people wear regular messenger bags.