As a woman and mother to 5 amazing daughter I was overwhelmed by a story and movement I heard about. The Skincare Brand SK-ll has been promoting a campaign to help empower women to change their destiny. You would think the campaign would have something to do with beauty, and indeed I think the cause is beautiful and powerful, but it isn’t about selling skin care. #changedestiny is an ongoing global campaign to help women change how they seen and treated in society. It might not sound like such a huge cause but read this statement and tell me if you can think there isn’t an issue still:
”We’re single, but not ’leftovers’” – Chinese women refuse being pressured into marriage
”Sheng Nu literally translates to ’leftoverwoman’”, says Li Yu Xuan, a 33-year old single Chinese woman. ”It refers to women over 25 who are not married.” In a new film by International Prestige Skincare Brand SK-ll, Xuan and others are voicing their concerns, asking for better understanding.
I had no idea there was a name for Chinese women over 25 that haven’t gotten married and that it isn’t flattering. The new movie is called “Marriage Market” and high lights the issues young women face in a society that values them in such a way that they are looked down on if not married by 25. I can’t imagine a society that has parents putting their unknowing daughters up in Marriage Markets to try and get them married off by 25 years old.
I thought the says of women being controlled like that ended with my Memere (Grandmother) who grew up in Canada. You see she wanted to be a modern woman in many ways and when she was in high school she choose to leave school and get a job at a factory like so many of her friends had. She came home to tell her family her great news, that she was hired, only to find her father furious with her. No daughter of his would be out working, he forced her to quit and instead stay home with her mother and care for her siblings. It hurt her deeply. She told me the story a few times growing up insisting that I could have any job I wanted to and that things were different here in America and that was one of the reasons she and my Pepere (grandfather) came to The States. She eventually did get a factory job that she very much loved and worked till and old age when she retired to take care of my Pepere and I. She was amazing to me, still is, and I miss her deeply. She will always be in my heart. I hope as a parent to learn the lessons her parents did not, that in order to keep my children close, I need to not control their lives once they are grown.
I find it a scary thing that in this day and age women are still treated kind of like cattle to be traded. In many Chinese cities so-called marriage markets are a common sight. Here, parents go to post, compare and match personal ads, listing the height, weight, salary, values and personality of their sons and daughters. Sometimes their daughters have no idea this is going on. The need and cultural expectation to please parents is strong.
In this movie, “Marriage Market” a number of brave Chinese women have daringly chosen to speak their mind about one of the most controversial subjects in recent Chinese history, the ”Sheng Nu” label. It isn’t a topic widely known here in America and I highly recommend you watch it.
This movie shows the positive side of ”Sheng Nu” and empowered woman waiting for love or changing their destiny.
