"A Traditional Symphony with Modernized Keys" by Gaille Su
A modern fusion of western diversity and Chinese traditions, Hong Kong is known as one of the most progressive cities in the world. As "Asia's World City", Hong Kong prides itself in the significant advancements made toward creating a diverse and accepting society. However, beneath the acclaimed surface of statistics, the unconscious solipsism that led to age-old prejudices such as gender preferences continue to plague Hong Kong's society today.
The evolution of gender equality is not straight: it backtracks and cycles into age-old cages with modernized keys. For generations, Chinese women were taught to bind their feet to retain their feminism, to conform and find bliss in the cloth strips that cut through their soles. Today, females share the same opportunities as their male peers, career scopes, and academic pursuits free of their choosing. They have the right to equal education, the right to speak out in public and own property, and the right to work at a job or profession and control their own earnings. Their choices are now unlimited, their future bright; it is not uncommon for wives and mothers to have studied abroad or hold doctorate degrees anymore.
Only, this is where the problem lies. We define these high-achieving women as wives, prioritizing their marital and family status as though this is what earns them respect and awe. The problem of gender inequality is abstract and conceptual at times: data does not so easily reflect the sunken pedestal women stand on. They are expected to carry out biological expectations, their femininity a precious value protected from the destructive onrush of Western modernization. These 'wives', intelligent and capable as they are, are ushered into their husbands' kitchen, professions notwithstanding their responsibility, first and foremost, as a homemaker. The 'traditional upbringing' of girls in today's society is to provide them with the same education as their brothers, to put them through rigorous college entrance exams and expect the nothing less than the best -- studying medicine, of course, -- and then pester them about their lack of spouse by the time they turn 25. It seems as though girls cannot quite escape the rigid mold of being a 'feminine woman'; the average wife is permitted to understand his profession, but never to partake in it.
Equal education rights have somehow justified woman's degradation in later stages of society, imbalances comfortably explained by inequitable justifications. According to the Equal Opportunities Commission in Hong Kong, the median monthly employment earnings for women in 2020 was HK$17,000, lower than HK$20,000 for men. Employers argue that since women leave their jobs earlier than men to take care of their families, wages favoring male colleagues are more than reasonable. With lower economic stability and financial support, the reliance women place on their husbands as 'breadwinners' becomes inescapable, and they are once more restricted to the roles of marriage and marriage alone.
Like a Chinese finger trap, paradoxical values of femininity and success suffocate women the more they thrash against societal expectations.
There is no glorification of femininity in Hong Kong; very few Chinese women risk breaking through traditional social strictures that define them as women, yet when they abandon any professional commitment to bear children, to be the feminine figure their elders expected of them, there is no appreciation or commendation waiting for them. They evade personal desires to fit into the conventional feminine figure and attempt to adjust to the housewife role, a role that required none of the intellectual capabilities they had prepared for in university. It is feminine for a Chinese daughter to be docile and selfless, feminine for them to sacrifice their own individualities and career ambitions for a marriage. An old Chinese saying goes: 'men are breadwinners; women are homemakers.' Centuries of practice have forced men and women alike into these evolutionary roles that humankind once needed to thrive. It's incredibly difficult to walk the fine line between gender equality: who can say for sure whether a woman becomes a housewife because she's expected to, and caved into familial pressure, or because she was willing to, and has a stronger bond with her children?
In a multicultural society where Western ideals of independence contradict so strongly with Chinese beliefs of femininity and masculinity, it becomes increasingly challenging for a female to find self-fulfillment in her true identity, without deviating from either one expectation or another. Ultimately, finding acceptance and satisfaction in our roles, whatever they may be, is a lesson only we ourselves can learn.