Virginia Woolf <A room of one’s own >
The “room” not only symbolizes the need for physical space, but also represents women’s desire for independent thinking, free action and self-expression.
https://www.douyin.com/note/7373154615405137171
Dai Jinhua, Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Peking University, and Zhou Yijun, a writer and documentary filmmaker, had a wonderful dialogue on “Women Are a Situation”. I was impressed by the discussion of the relationship between mother and daughter. Dai Jinhua said that a specific motivation for his growth was not to be like his mother. That’s why I chose the lifestyle I have now. Growing up, I witnessed the dedication of my mother in her dual social role as society and family. From morning to night, she didn’t have a moment of her own, everything came first to her father and me. She is a wife, a mother, a daughter, but not herself. This phenomenon has continued from my grandmother to my generation, and the readjustment of social labor has not developed a new female template and culture.
Zhou Yijun also mentioned that he was an afterthought of feminism, and getting married and having children seemed to follow the path of his parents. All the desires of women are not shaped, are not a process of being edified. Dai Jinhua believes that this is a double standard in society, “I think women should belong to the family, and if you don’t be a wife and mother, you must have a so-called.” And then they are dragged into the rules of success in the male realm to be compared and scrutinized.
When we talk about feminism, we are not looking for “privilege” or opposing men, but about finding a way to place ourselves in today’s uncertain world. Dai Jinhua said that feminism told her two things, one is that all this is not your personal fault, but the common problems faced by countless women; The second is to learn to look at the men around you, instead of deifying and looking up to them, and then internalize the myths created by those male powers.
Also as Yonjoo Cho mentioned, more grassroots women organizations and activists are needed to protect women’s rights in both rural and urban areas. The society needs to be educated to look at women leaders in the same way as their men counterparts. It is time for the longstanding social expectation of women to be replaced by a new attitude; that is, valuing women’s efforts in their career pursuits and self-representation in all aspects of life. Then, a real era of women holding up half the sky will come. (Cho, 2017)
This made me think of the importance on women’s supportive networks. In the mainstream of society, women may be limited by many rules, but we can share our resources by forming our own networks, just like Nushu to open up a new path for contemporary women.
Wang, Ning <Challenges of globalization and prospects for an inter-civilizational world order>
This made me think of promoting the ancient female only language Nushu is also a good way to strengthen the position of Chinese culture in the world.