Comment by yorwba | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yorwba | Hacker News Reader

> last week, the education ministry issued a notice with a title that left no doubt about its ultimate goal.

The linked notice is titled 关于政协十三届全国委员会第三次会议第4404号（教育类410号）提案答复的函教师提案〔2020〕475号 http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xxgk/xxgk_jyta/jyta_jiaoshisi/2021...

About the Political Consultative Conference's 13th National Committee's third session, answer to the 4404th proposal (410th on education). Teaching proposal no. 475 (2020)

Yes, no doubts about its ultimate goal indeed.

The answer begins:

您提出的《关于防止男性青少年女性化的提案》收悉，现将涉及教育部业务部分答复如下：

Having received and read your "Proposal on the prevention of the feminization of male youth", the answers to the parts concerning the Ministry of Education are as follows:

(Then there's a bunch of blabla about improving school sports and whatnot, without any references to gender.)

So someone (who?) was concerned about feminization and asked the Ministry of Education to do something about that and they responded.

The BBC seems to have mistaken the title mentioned in the response for a statement of the Ministry of Education's official policy.

Maybe I should submit a "Proposal to replace Google Translate by fluent Chinese speakers" to the BBC so they can publish a headline "BBC to improve its reporting on China" but I'm not holding my breath.

That someone is perhaps a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. I think a close equivalence is an MP in the UK or a congressman / congresswoman / senate in the US.

They make proposals on various aspects of life in China. Those proposals aren't official policies.

BBC should really have done a better job here.

It is also funny to see the top thread a few minutes ago quickly developed into something like military might and "China must be stopped".

The BBC is very quick on jumping to anything that can portray China in a negative light at the moment.

Now, there are many things that do, but a more prudent and balanced approach with more research would serve the BBC well.

> They make proposals on various aspects of life in China. Those proposals aren't official policies. > BBC should really have done a better job here.

The BBC has been flogging SJW agendas for a while now. Even though they're a state organ they need clicks just like anyone else -- and this gets traffic.

Mix in some good ole China xenophobia and voila, one of the most active posts on HN.

The formula works.

Anyone who follows main stream entertainment in China and social media would understand these events as a commonly occurring cultural phenomenon (roughly the equivalent of 'masculinity/identity crisis' lately).

Having lived in Europe for more than a decade I however, did find the english title very alarming and worrying, even while reading the same chinese text have no such feeling at all.... language works in different context I suppose...

Two things to note here, first that this isn't really different to any other part of the world. There's always some concern about feminisation of men by (usually) older people who had a rough childhood in the war or something and now project their ideals onto others.

The other thing to note, although its not particularly interesting, is that there's going to be a media bias against china from the west in general.

Unrelated to the article, but let’s not forget that leeching of estrogen into the ecosystem. This is a real thing and very measurable by ecologists.

The US Army also tests such things as sperm count and has seen a rapid decline.

So the real solution is less pollution :)

Hmm. Sudden off-topic thought: I regularly hear about the decline in violent crime, and hear it attributed to the end of leaded gasoline. Could it be due to falling sperm count instead (or due to the cause of the falling count)?

There are nuances and some culture differences in young people from asian and US background e.g. The feminine males are a big part in the mass media such as pop culture (Jpop or Kpop) and anime. Never have the muscular characters dominated any genre (just check any main guy in Japanese/Korean productions). The frail ones are a stereotypical archetype. But I guess you're right about the older generation projecting ideals onto youths nowadays...

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