Does empowering women lead to disempowering men?

I am a girl from China, and I would like to talk about the situation regarding women’s rights in our country.

The origin of feminism lies in the West, and the true meaning of feminism is that women should have equal rights with men, not privileges.

one is not born, but rather becomes, woman.

de Beauvoir

In China, there has been a significant surge in women’s consciousness in recent years, and feminism has increasingly become a common topic on mainstream social media. This indicates that Chinese women are paying more attention to the social status of women.

In essence, rights are a form of power held by a minority, the ability of a few to dominate and control limited resources. It is a privilege that is exclusive. If everyone has the same rights, it no longer possesses dominance and exclusivity, and the party possessing these rights can no longer influence and control those who don’t have them. Therefore, when social resources are abundant, the competition for rights is not so fierce and evident. However, when social resources become scarce, the voice of feminism grows louder, and the criticism and stigmatization of feminism in society become more severe.

In the past thirty years of China’s reform and opening-up, the economy has experienced rapid development. Similar to Western education, women from ordinary families in China have access to education. We, women, can attend school and take the national college entrance examination (Gaokao) alongside men. After decades of development, the education level of Chinese women now surpasses that of men in general. Women have shown remarkable talent in their studies, even surpassing men. It’s worth noting that before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Chinese women did not have the right to education. The existence of a large number of highly educated women has laid the foundation for the rise of feminism today.

The development of women’s rights in China

The rapid development of the Chinese economy and the awakening of Chinese women’s consciousness have intersected. Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the appearance of global economic stagnation, China’s GDP growth has slowed significantly. The economic downturn has led to the closure of many businesses, and the market economy lacks vitality. Currently, China still relies on small and medium-sized enterprises to provide the majority of jobs, but there are no longer as many businesses, large or small. Meanwhile, due to the previously high admission rates in China’s higher education system (universities), hundreds of universities across China have been producing tens of millions of university graduates annually in recent years. The turning point of the economy and the massive number of graduates have intersected, resulting in an increasing number of young people becoming unemployed or unable to find jobs. According to national statistics, the youth unemployment rate is over 20%.

This harsh social environment has become one of the reasons for the explosive rise of feminism in China. Even in the face of such a fiercely competitive job market, educated women are unwilling to be merely housewives like their mothers. They want to achieve their ideals and values, support themselves through their abilities, and pursue a better life. However, as mentioned earlier in the definition of rights, when resources become scarce, the competition for rights intensifies.

In traditional gender roles, men in most countries bear the main economic responsibility for the family, making a living the default attribute of men. In traditional East Asian countries, this value placed on men is even more severe. Due to the limited number of positions available in the job market, companies tend to hire men when faced with such a large number of job seekers because they believe:

Men can withstand greater work intensity than women (which is, of course, incorrect).

Most women will get married before the age of 30 and take maternity leave, so companies are unwilling to bear the absenteeism and decreased work performance resulting from women taking maternity leave.

After giving birth, women shift their focus to the family and may not be able to fully devote themselves to work.

These factors lead companies to prefer hiring men to avoid these issues and maximize cost-effectiveness. This preference has a reason behind it because the government never shares the losses incurred by companies in hiring women.

Therefore, Chinese women often face obstacles when seeking employment and are frequently asked questions like, “Are you married?” “Do you have children?” “If you are hired, you must guarantee not to have children within a few years, otherwise you won’t be hired.” There are even cases where women are asked only about their age, and if they seem to be close to marrying age, they are immediately passed over.

These harsh job requirements make Chinese women very resistant to marriage. They try to improve their job skills as much as possible before considering romantic relationships. The disregard for women’s employment discrimination by the government, and the lack of reproductive guarantees and basic welfare for women in society, make us cautious about entering into marriage. Because once they lose their job due to childbirth, housewives can only rely on their husbands as their source of income. The state does not provide any subsidies for childbirth, and all the costs associated with childbirth are borne by the family. The consequences of losing an economic source of income are borne solely by women.

All of the above situations have led to the prevalence of feminism. We want to fight for equal employment rights and obtain economic and property security for housewives. We have been advocating for this, but there has been no improvement. Perhaps in the current economic downturn, it’s already difficult for men to find jobs, so they don’t care about women’s rights anymore. That’s why we see such severe gender conflicts online, which are essentially the result of everyone competing for limited resources. There was even a day when someone proposed a ridiculous solution to solve China’s unemployment problem and low birth rate: banning women from working. This way, job positions could be freed up for more men, and once the economic situation of men improved, they could marry women who didn’t have economic capabilities. In this way, both major problems would be solved at the same time. It leaves me speechless.

Returning to the original question, “Does empowering women lead to disempowering men?” The answer is yes. That’s why we see such severe gender conflicts in different countries, such as South Korea and China. Power is a zero-sum game. In essence, if I ask that does empowering the poor lead to disempowering the rich of power? you will understand.