Xinran
http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,36...1064757,00.html

Now women in China know what they have been missing, the pain is too hard to bear

Friday October 17, 2003
The Guardian

Why do so many women commit suicide in China? According to a report in the British medical journal the Lancet last year, suicide is China's fifth biggest killer, with women and girls most at risk. It reported that China is one of the few countries in the world where the female suicide rate is higher than it is for males. Twenty-five per cent more women commit suicide than men.
I don't know how many other countries this is true for. whether China is the only country in the world where more women commit suicide than men. And I don't know all the reasons why. But I do know through the many letters I receive some of the reasons why Chinese women give up their lives so easily.

First of all, in ancient times Roman gladiators killed and were killed for people's pleasure and their own glory, because people did not have the same respect for human life that they do today. Similarly, throughout Chinese history, there has been a culture of people killing themselves for the pleasure and honour of their family and for their own glory, for women to prove their honesty and, often, true love. This culture persists in many parts of China today, particularly in the rural areas of the south-west.

Secondly, quite a number of Chinese women would rather give up their lives than suffer from "not being a good woman", according to the Chinese traditional role. For generations, having a good, clean name has been more important than human life itself. This is doubly true in the impoverished countryside, where, apart from housework, the importance of reputation is often the only thing they are taught.

What is a good, clean name? As I mentioned in a previous column, it means that a woman must be a virgin before marriage; that she should never be touched by a man apart from her husband; that she should never been seen alone with other men; and that she should not remarry or be with another man after her husband has died. In addition, many Chinese women in the countryside have a status much lower than that of men, even lower than big tools or property. When others do not treat you as a human being, it is difficult to know how to see yourself as one. Less than 100 years ago, the situation wasn't so different in the west.

But why do some Chinese women still feel hopeless, even though the country has been opened up and improved so much since the 1980s? I discovered the answer through a woman I met a few years ago.

I was sitting beside her in hospital. She was called Mei-Hua and had tried to commit suicide. I asked her why. "Mei-Hua, I understood why you tried to kill yourself two years ago when you were in your village where you were bullied and abused by your ex-husband. You have a better life now in the city as a cleaner in a hotel - so why did you do it again?"

She looked at me: "Why? I didn't know that there was such a different life here compared with my village. Then I thought about it all the time. Why have I not had the chance to learn to read and write in my life? Why do I have no right to choose whom I love - because I am a second-class citizen? Why did I have to give up my baby girl, while the daughters of city people dress beautifully and walk around arm-in-arm with young boys? How can I face them with the daily pain of my missing daughter?

"Why? What is wrong with my life? Why is my fate so poor? Why? Why?!"

Why? To be honest, I couldn't answer any of her whys. Mei-Hua and I both fell silent.

A child will not ask you for ice cream if she has never tasted it. People do not feel pain in their life when they have nothing to compare it with. Over the past 100 years, when the first lights of freedom and democracy came to China, many educated women suffered from what they knew but could not get in their lifetime. Over the past 20 years, when many peasants and farmers have flooded into cities to seize their first opportunity to make a better life, hundreds of women have found themselves lost in the same "whys" as Mei-Hua's. I believe this is another of the reasons why Chinese women commit suicide.

Mei-Hua now has a job as a cleaner in a school thanks to her doctor. She can apparently now read basic children's books.

sigh

不知该说什么好。

对于妇女地位我想世界上很少有国家象中国这样好。随着中国的独立，中国妇女的地位随着和男性平等起来，各地都有广泛的妇女组织。在工作岗位上妇女和男性有平等的机会而其他方面就更不用说了。
不象某些发达国家，比如说The Guardian所在的这个，表面上男女平等，甚至女人有更多的优先权，但只停留在表面。那只是这个国家人表现礼貌的一种方式，而不是真正意义上的平等。比如说有些俱乐部还是MEN ONLY。即使撒切儿夫人申请了几次都固执的不批准。。

还有那个世界上最富裕，最发达的国家，自己的人权问题一大堆，还整天的谴责他国的人权状况。

女性解放事业要坚持下去！！！

英国的妇女状况也好不到哪里去。