Tiny Times for Women China Story Yearbook Is Available Online
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FORUM TINY TIMES FOR WOMEN China Story Yearbook is available online: www.TheChinaStory.org Excerpt from C HINA S TORY YEARBOOK 2 0 13 CIVILISING CHINA 文明中华 EDITED BY Geremie R. Barmé AND Jeremy Goldkorn © The Australian National University (as represented by the Australian Centre on China in the World) This publication is made available as an Open Educational Resource through licensing under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 3.0 Australia Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/au/deed.en Note on Visual Material All images in this publication have been fully accredited. As this is a non-commercial publication, certain images have been used under a Creative Commons license. These images have been sourced from flickr, Widipedia Commons and the copyright owner of each original picture is acknowledged and indicated in the source information ISBN 978-0-9873655-3-8 First published in October 2013 THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR SALE Published by: Australian Centre on China in the World The Australian National University Art direction, typesetting and illustration by Markuz Wernli Printed by Union Offset Printers, Canberra, Australia The Australian Centre on China in the World is an initiative of the Commonwealth Government of Australia Chinese football fans, Guiyang, June 2011. and The Australian National University Source: ImagineChina HALF THE SKY? 180 181 TINY TIMES FOR WOMEN Tiny Times for Women ????? Full Title of the Story Here ????? Name of the Author(s) Here How much Less than Half the Sky? 2013 · LETA HONG FINCHER FORUM Leading Sex and Gender Stories of 2012 CHINA STORY YEARBOOK CHINA STORY Marriage and its Discontents · RACHEL WANG 182 183 TINY TIMES FOR WOMEN Tiny Times for Women 2013 China does not lack notable female magazine’s 2008 as one of the world’s CHINA STORY YEARBOOK CHINA STORY entrepreneurs, publishers, social ac- top one hundred intellectuals along- tivists, educators or commentators. side Noam Chomsky and Umberto Eco. Prominent businesswomen include The independent journalist and histo- Zhang Lan (b. 1958), founder of the rian Dai Qing (b.1941) was one of the South Beauty (Qiaojiangnan 俏江南) forces behind China’s nascent envi- chain of restaurants and Dong Ming- ronmental movement in the mid-1980s zhu (b. 1956), CEO of GREE air condi- and continues her tireless advocacy tioning company. Hu Shuli (b.1953), for human rights, democracy and en- the financial journalist at the helm of vironmental protection. Hong Huang Caixin Media has an international rep- (b.1962) is a well-known media mo- utation that has seen her win awards gul, microblogger and television host including the World Press Review’s whose projects include the high-profile 2003 International Editor of the Year promotion of Chinese design brands. and a listing in the US Foreign Policy The list is long. Yet Chinese women’s Zhang Lan. Dong Mingzhu. Hu Shuli. Dai Qing. Hong Huang. Wu Yi. Source: China- Source: Wikime- Source: Asia- Photo: Photo: Benja- Source: China- detail.com dia Commons society.org Ian Elwood min Chiang detail.com 184 185 Tiny Times for Women Film poster of Tiny Times, directed and produced by Guo Jingming. Source: Onlylady.com 2013 pendent female voices of authority and a rich husband. Writing in the Atlantic intelligence, the ones who appear to get magazine Ying Zhu and Frances Hisgen Xu Jinglei. Guo Meimei Baby. Zhou Rui Emily. most of the attention in this new ‘micro’ noted that the women’s ‘professional CHINA STORY YEARBOOK CHINA STORY Source: Chineseidol.info Source: Weibo.com Source: Mop.com climate are women such as Guo Meimei aspirations amount to serving men with representation at the highest levels of du jour from 2005 to 2008, tens of mil- Baby (see the 2012 Yearbook) and Zhou competence’ and that the only ‘endur- the Chinese political sphere has rarely lions fans logged onto Xu’s blog daily Rui Emily (see Chapter 7), mistresses ing relationship’ in the superficial world been more than token. There has not for her independent, down-to-earth who boast of gifts from their rich lovers. portrayed by the film is ‘the chicks’ re- been a woman in the politburo since take on life and her willingness to share Perhaps most notorious was Ma Nuo, a lationship with material goods’. Zhu Wu Yi (b.1938 and named one of Time non glam photographs with her fans. In twenty-year-old female contestant on a and Hisgen call the male-scripted film magazine’s 100 most influential people 2010, Xu directed Go La La Go! (Du Lala TV dating show in 2010 who famously ‘a great leap backward for women’ that in the world in 2004) retired from her shengzhi ji 杜拉拉升职记), a film about a said that she would ‘rather cry in the portrays ‘a twisted male narcissism and position as Vice-Premier on the State young professional woman’s struggle to back of a BMW than laugh on the back a male desire for patriarchal power and Council in 2008. balance work and life. of a bicycle’ (Ning zai Baoma cheili ku, ye control over female bodies and emo- The last few years have also argu- But the era of the microblog that bu zai zixingcheshang xiao 宁在宝马车里 tions misconstrued as female longing’. ably seen a stumble backwards when it started with the launch of Sina Weibo 哭,也不在自行车上笑). comes to the representation of women in 2009 is also one that seems to cele- In contrast to Xu Jinglei’s 2010 film, in the media and on the Internet. The brate brashness and materialism, and the biggest hit film with young women most prominent Chinese Internet celeb- the subservience and sexualisation of in early 2013 was Tiny Times (Xiao shi- rity of the first decade of the twenty-first women over the sort of qualities that dai 小时代), directed and produced by century was, arguably, Xu Jinglei, an have brought the likes of Hu Shuli, Dai male pulp novelist Guo Jingming. Tiny unmarried film director and actor. After Qing and other such women to prom- Times depicts four young women whose long-form blogging became the medium inence. Although there are still inde- main aim in life appears to be snagging 186 187 HOW MUCH LESS THAN halF THE SKY? Leta Hong Fincher How much Less than Half the Sky? Leta Hong Fincher 2013 Leita Hong Fincher, a former journalist, is a PhD candidate in sociology at Tsing- hua University in Beijing who is conducting research on the economic effects of CHINA STORY YEARBOOK CHINA STORY sexism and the changing place of women in Chinese society and author of the book ‘Leftover’ Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China. The following is a transcript of a brief interview with Hong Fincher conducted by Jeremy Gold- korn in May 2013. JG: Is Chinese society going backwards since the privatisation of housing and when it comes to the treatment of wom- the real estate boom in China, Chi- en and what would you say are the ma- na has created over US$27 trillion in jor areas where women’s status or con- residential real estate wealth. Most of ditions are deteriorating? that wealth is in men’s names. Parents tend to buy homes for sons and not LHF: There are many, many areas for daughters. A lot has been written in which women’s status is moving about the pressure on men to provide a backwards. I will start with my own home upon marriage, but what I found research. I found that women have is the pressure is equally intense on been shut out of arguably the biggest women and so there are a lot of women accumulation of real estate wealth in who transfer their life savings and all history. In the past decade and a half, of their assets over to the man – and it 188 may not even be the husband, it may because whoever has greater wealth in 189 just be a boyfriend – in order to fi- the marriage has a lot more bargain- nance the purchase of this extremely ing power in all areas of the marriage. valuable home. So what you are seeing is the cre- That relates to another very serious ation of this gigantic gender wealth problem for women, which is the per- gap, and the consequences of this gen- vasiveness of domestic violence. I do der wealth inequality could last for not think that we have the evidence How much Less than Half the Sky? Leta Hong Fincher generations, because there is no tax to say that domestic violence has nec- 2013 on property and there is no gift tax essarily worsened, but it certainly has imposed on parents buying homes for not gotten any better and there has their children. So that’s one major area been no progress whatsoever in intro- of economic inequality between wom- ducing a national law that would real- CHINA STORY YEARBOOK CHINA STORY en and men. ly prevent and punish perpetrators of There has been a lot of research domestic violence. This is a very seri- Giant bird cage. Photo: Ernie Emop on other areas. The gender income ous problem, especially when it comes gap is widening, and labour force to property rights. participation among women is declin- There are all sorts of other areas. ed it as part of China’s official lexicon. What I have found is that this is not ing sharply, particularly in the cities. Human Rights Watch came out with And ever since then, the state media merely a cultural phenomenon, it There has also been this law that was this report recently about the prolifer- has been stigmatising urban educated has very drastic economic conse- amended by China’s Supreme People’s ation of prostitution in the last few de- women over the age of twenty-seven quences and relates back to my topic Court in August 2011, a new judicial cades and major abuses of all of these who are still single, and so in all the of real estate wealth.