Snags of Females Combating behind this Splendid Metropolis By Kelly Yeung

What is your first impression of Hong Kong ladies? Astute? Sober? Dogged? Elegant? Or amiable? Seems like females in Hong Kong are so glamorous and exquisite. Incontrovertibly, they have a higher quality of life in Hong Kong compared to others megalopolis, but they still face a myriad of predicaments nevertheless. In this article, the deplorable situations that females need to defy will be stated out in three dimensions: Society, Kith and Kin, Individual. 

Socially speaking, the difference between women and men’s income are astonishingly colossal. You may wonder what the cause is of this phenomenon. One might think that education would correlate to position (and emolument) in the workplace. Ironically, in fact about 60% of college 

students are female which is an exceedingly staggering statistic. Albeit women surpass male graduates, they enter the workforce in equal numbers as men, but they do not progress into positions of influence and leadership at that equivalent rate. Only 29% of management roles in Hong Kong belong to women, lagging behind our regional neighbours of mainland China and Singapore. Hence, women’s social mobility lags behind that of men. Subsequently, women earn less than men do. Furthermore, even though women have the same position as men, lamentably, their salaries stunningly vary. As reported by Women and Men in Hong Kong Key Statistics, Census and Statistics Department, median monthly employment earnings (HK dollars) of male managers and administrators obtain $42,000 whilst females in the same position only earn $40,000. Over and above that, male professionals gross $45,000 per month whereas females merely receive $42,000. As a matter of course, there should not be discrepancies in salaries, for identical work, between the sexes, right? Mournfully, women have to suffer this injustice but hopefully not in the future. 

In regard to the family, women face grave gender inequality by dint of ingrained gender rolls which are still apparent. In Hong Kong, we have a conventional adage “Men are breadwinners; women are homemakers”. As a result, women will typically be responsible for all housework. Notably, after a family has a newborn baby, a woman is customarily asked to relinquish their career and stay at home to become an obscure housewife. Indeed, taking care of children should

be both parents’ responsibility. Then why should housework and child-rearing be regarded as a woman's obligation? These onus have been an exclusively female ‘privilege’. Thanks to traditional thoughts, women need to tackle gender inequality in the family. 

Personally, ladies often encounter acute gender stereotypes in schools. When I was a secondary three student, I was instructed to choose my electives. Notwithstanding my tutors know I relish studying Physics, Chemistry and Biology, they still urged me to study liberal art because I am a 

girl. Is it a must that girls should be keen on liberal arts? Is it a must that girls cannot be enthusiastic about sciences? Incontestably, in no circumstances! There are umpteem eminent female scientists, for instance, Tiera Guinn and Marie Curie. Consequently, boys do not have the patent to study science subjects, girls can also be versed in STEM. Despite boys also facing gender stereotypes at schools, it is relatively smaller than girls’ by dint of many male literary authors are more prominent and illustrious than females’, for instance, Shakespeare and Milton. Hence, mankind often thinks that it is customary for boys to study literature. Regrettably, girls need to address these severe gender stereotypes. 

To conclude, women and ladies have rampant and mountains of hurdles to combat.I hope that this article can draw attention to readers, as well as society, on the true capabilities of women rather than simply on their outward appearances.