Contemporary World Presentation Outline 

Objective 

1) What do we learn?

2) What is your expectation about the classmate to learn?

3) Argument?

4) Main point? 

The stereotype roots of traditional gender are deeply in our mind.

Economically depend on man.

Realize the differences of gender role between traditional Chinese society and contemporary Hong Kong. 

Guide the classmate to review the gender role in traditional and contemporary Hong Kong.

Revoke the interest about gender role.

My Group Discussion Views:

baby boy: Usually strong, independent, high working ability, can be an heir in the family.

baby boy: Can't do household work, Careless.

baby girl: Can do household work and take care of the family.

baby girl: Low-working ability, dependent. 

Main point: refer to the PowerPoint slide.

Family Role and Emotional Orientation Minds 

Family Role 

In the traditional Chinese society, male is the core of the family and female is only an assistant. The reason of this is because of the Patriarchy 

In the traditional Chinese, Men were the mainstay of the family. They had education and job opportunities. They needed to provide money for the family. Also, they had the rights to make all of the important decisions. And they respond for supervising and disciplining the children. They had the power of the family. But only sons have the heritage. 

For women, they were only a helper to fulfill men’s decision. They stayed at home and looked after their children. Even a little girl, she needed to look after kids and do house work. They had no education and job opportunities. Their living was supported by men. But they had no heritage. 

In the contemporary Hong Kong, the role of male and female are being more closed and the reason is the impact of Western Culture.
For men, they have the same responsibilities as in the past. But these kinds of things will share with women. Also, men will share the household work with women. 

For women, they still mainly respond for household work even they have a full time job. But men will share this. Now, some of the families would support by daughters who have high education level. Also, more and more families like to pass their heritage to daughters.

Emotional Orientation Minds 

Sex-outside-marriage

 Past:As we all know that, sex-outside-marriage was not allowed in the traditional china. In the past, China was a male-dominated society. If a husband had sex-outside-marriage with a girl, it was not a serious thing. Maybe he could have more than one concubine. However, if a wife had sex-outside-marriage with a man, it was not allowed. Let’s take the film ’Raise the red lantern’ as an example. In the film the third concubine had adultery with the family doctor. When her husband discovered that, she had sex relation with the doctor. He felt very angry with that. So, he had ordered some workers to kill her wife. It is obvious that, sex-outside-marriage was not allowed in the traditional China. If women commit that kind of things, they maybe killed. 

Now:      But now, people are more open-minded than before. Sex-outside-marriage become common now. No matter, husband or wife, they may dishonors to their spouses. To conclude, sex-outside-marriage is become prevalent now. 

Lacks of freedom - love and marriage 

Past:      In the past, people were lack of freedom of love. It was important that, most of people were married with the one who did not know before. In fact, their spouses were assigned by their parents. On the other hand, they had no freedom of love.

      Besides, it was lack of freedom of marriage. People were thought that, marriage is a life long commitment. So, there was no divorce in the past. There was only concubine. From women’s point of view, they could only get married once only and they could not divorce with their husband. However, men had right to divorce with their wife and have concubine. On the other hand, women did not have freedom on their marriage or love.

      But now, both men and women have freedom of love and marriage. Let’s take the film ‘City of glass’ as an example. The film stated that, nowadays people have freedom of love. Falling in love is a common thing now. In the film, both of the character love with each other deeply. However, after a period of time, they forgot each other. It mentions that, their love is as fragile as glass and marriage is not a life-long commitment anymore.

Minds 

Fashion and Style 

Fashion and Style I 

Traditional Chinese society: Men and women have very little fashion and styles. Styles of clothes seldom change.

Only little women in high social status wore fashion like Qi-pao, and these Qi-pao have long straight cut which cover whole body.

Different from Qi-pao nowadays. They trend to hide the female body shape. 

Reasons:

--Conservative

--The society focus more on women's appearance but not intelligence 

Men Vs Women

Men:

Straight Cutting, mono colour suits and trousers

Women:

•      Clothes covered whole body, high collar, straight cutting, no emphasis in curve shape of female body.

•      They sew and cut to make cloths themselves.

•      Young girls may have very little fashion just like wearing clothes with small patterns. However, after 40 (or married), women insulated with fashion. Just wear black and dull traditional shirts until dead.

Fashion and Style II 

The Contemporary Hong Kong:

  Both cloths of men and women are more colourful. Shape cutting. Have own styles. Main target is the population (not only noble class anymore), so made massive production. 

Reasons:

--Faster pace and busy life (not cut and sew by ownself)

--Individualism (= style)

--Ability of women to consume goods increase (having careers)

--Influence of media (they define successful people as someone who have styles and fashionable)

--Fashion equal to freedom (able to create owns style )

Men Vs Women

Men:

•     Colourful shirts

Women:

•      no matter how old the women are, they always wear fashion.

•      Emphasis shape of body, more open, low cutting.

•      Buy from shops, seldom make by hand. E.g. U2, G2000, OPA 

Example of film : La Brassier 

Body Shape 

Body Shape I 

Traditional Chinese Society:

  Men must strong with physical power.

  Women only emphasize on the body shape.They were not thin and some were fat to represent "healthy and wealthy"

Reasons:

-- Masculine(男性化)…

Body Shape II 

The Contemporary Hong Kong:

   Men are not required to be strong, some act like girls

  Women like to be slim, not “S” shape.

Reasons:

--Youth culture from American

(Youth can consume goods. The market target on them and made goods which suits youth)

-- Youth still not yet finish develop their bodyà slim

-- Slim means fashion (市場年青化) ( most fashion emphasize slim ) 

Sex

Sex I 

Traditional Chinese society:

--Extremely conservative,

  no sex outside marriages

--Both gender have no way

  to express their need in sex desire

Reasons:

--limitation of traditional culture

( Sex talk is prohibited )

Sex II 

The Contemporary Hong Kong:

    More open-minded, especially women. Both parts can be dominated.

   Women are not controlled by men anymore, independent, can choose to have sex or not.

Example of Film: La Brassiere 

Reasons:

-- Introduction of contraceptive pills  

Film introduction and description : La Brassiere 

-         it showed a conversation between two women

-         Samantha: powerful business women who makes Bra. The Chairman of Hong Kong of the international Bra company that she works for.

-         Candy: a stuff in a fashion store. 

Candy’s boyfriend, Johnny worked in Samantha’s Bra company for just 2 months, and her boyfriend fall in love with Samantha & have sexual relationship with her one night.

After that, Johnny deeply falls in love with Samantha. Candy realizes his relation with Samantha, and they finally broke up peacefully.

Unfortunately, Samantha is not serious with Johnny. She stay away from Johnny, even when she knew Johnny broke up with his girlfriend for her own sake.

Candy, who now is Johnny’s ex-girlfriend, phoned Samantha in order to meet her.

In the film section, they chatted peacefully and talked about Bra. 

Points to note:

Career – The venue that the two lady chatted have been chosen as their working places.

        (First shot showed Samantha’s office, then came to Candy’s fashion shop)

        These showed women now have careers.

Fashions – Colourful, sexy cutting of clothes. Women have their own styles

Bra – Bra here means men. They represent “Bra” as “men”.

     Samantha told Candy to choose Bra which suits her, but not tolerate to a bad quality-bra since this would harm herself. Sometimes if not necessary, women can also put the bra off.

This means women can choose the right kind of men they want. If the men don’t suit her, just ignore those men. If they like, they can choose to be single, but not force to have on because of social culture.

This shows the liberty of women and individualism. 

Occupation 

Ratio of occupation opportunity 

Rural:The ratio of the occupation opportunity is small for female. It is caused by the Sexism (性別主義). It means one of the sex (male) always have a greater ideological situation than another sex (female). This situation is systemize in the society, so both role of sexes become stereotype and socially constructed. And it will lead to the unfairness of both sexes. As a result, there are unfair occupation opportunities in the rural society and male has higher occupation opportunity.

Modern: The occupation opportunity of female greatly increase. It is due to the   feminist (女性主義). Feminists attack male-dominated society. A social movement that seeks equal rights for women, giving them an equal status with men, and they can freedom to decide their own careers and life pattern. Economic conditions underlying women's dependent status changed as women had fewer children, so the women can focus more on their work and have higher occupation opportunity.  

The ratio of the working position in the company 

Rural: Men usually working in a higher than women. It is due to the masculine of the male. The women may have talent but no opportunity to use it in their work due to the sexual discrimination. For one thing, usually the education level of men is greater than women, so male has higher competitive power than female. For another thing, the traditional Chinese culture is extremely conservative; so few women work in the society. 

Now: Due to the feminist, few women began to work in the professions work, and women as a whole achieved the right to vote, but still distinct limits on women's participation in the workplace, as well as a set of traditional beliefs that tended to confine women to their traditional roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers. Anyway, there is a big progress in women movement, and it change society's stereotypes of women as relatively weak, passive and dependent. 

Is there any sexual discrimination in employment?

Rural: As far as I know, most of the occupation is limited to the female except the services job, secretary and so on. And most of the occupation is control under the man, so the women have no opportunity to work in higher position. Also, in the same position on both sexes, women usually have an unfair treatment, such as low payment in job with virtually no opportunity to advance. It is caused by the masculine is advocated in the society.

Modern: The sexual discrimination is less than before. It is a result from the feminist. It criticized society's emphasis on women as objects of sexual desire and sought to become broader in both women's self awareness and their opportunities to the point of equality with men, so the women have greater freedom and they can have a suitable respect in their work. Democracy also leads to destroy the sexual discrimination in the employment. 

Film Studies

Rural: The Kings of Masks      Modern: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Social Status

In traditional Chinese society

As we have seen before, men had a high status in both family and employment. They were also the leading role of society and possess more influence in community affairs. Nearly all government official were men and held all executive positions. And for imperialism, only male could be the king. Even one or two powerful queens controlled the government; they had to hide behind the king. 

For women, they had a lower status. They were bound at home. They only do household work and did not receive higher-level education. They would not be government official and had little influence for policy. 

Now in Hong Kong 

Status of men does not have a big change. They still have their advance. For example, the Chief Executive, women can achieve this position but still this was achieved by a man. 

However, women had a higher status than before. They can have higher-level education and jobs. They are also the main labour force of HK economic. Beside, women make up 33% of civil servants. They can be fire fighter and traffic police. They also would be at executive positions in the government.

In 2001, women hold 30% of the most senior positions of civil service. 3 of the 12 members of the Executive Council, the Chief Executive’s top policymaking group and the 11 members of the 60-seat Legislative Council, including its President, are women. They can make decision for the government policy.  

Background of Legislative Council President 

We can see that she has a high level of education and has responded for many duties in the government. 

We can also see other factors that the women status has become higher. 

In 1995, Sex discrimination Ordinance was passed and set up Equal Opportunities Commission a year later. 

In 1996, Lee Lai-shan won the first Olympic gold medal for HK. After that she has become a role model for young women. 

Those factor also help to promote the status of women. 

Education

(Refer to PowerPoint note)

Bibliography

Catharine A. MacKinnon (1996), Sexual harassment of working women. Taipei: time culture. 〈Chinese〉

Liu Hong-ji (1991), Xiang Gang Da Zhuan Jiao Yu Zhong Fu Ru De Ji Gui. In Fanny M. Cheung, Wan Po-san, Choi Hang-keung, Choy Lee-man (Ed.) Selected Paper of Conference in Gender Studies in Chinese Societies. (P271-276). Hong Kong Institute of Asia Pacific Studies—The Chinese University of Hong Kong. 〈Chinese〉 

Stella L.M. So and Kitty Y. Young (1991), A Study of Women’s Abilities In Managerial Positions: Male and Female Perceptions .In Fanny M. Cheung, Wan Po-san, Choi Hang-keung, Choy Lee-man (Ed.) Selected Paper of Conference in Gender Studies in Chinese Societies. (P155-166). Hong Kong Institute of Asia Pacific Studies—The Chinese University of Hong Kong.  

Wen si-hu, 性別與創造-----女性主義美學及其他 (p.65 – 72). 〈Chinese〉 

Westwood, R. I., Ngo, H. Y., & Leung, S. M. (1997). The politics of opportunity: Gender and work in Hong Kong. Part I: The gendered segmentation of the labour market. In F. M. Cheung (Ed.), Engendering Hong Kong society: A gender perspective of women's status (pp. 41-99). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press 

Xia Wen-shen (1991). Zhong Guo Cheng Shi Fu Ru De Jia Ting De Wei De Bian Hua.  In Qiao Jian (Ed) Zhong Guo Jia Ting Ji Qi Bian Qian (P249-260). Hong Kong Institute of Asia Pacific Studies—The Chinese University of Hong Kong. 〈Chinese〉

Online references: 

A Baseline Survey on Equal Opportunities on the Basis of Gender Executive Summary

http://www.eoc.org.hk/research/no1/english/index.html 

CREATO.NET

http://www.creato.net/c/mo02.htm 

Census &statistics Department

http://www.info.gov.hk/censtatd/chinese/hkstat/index2.html 

Equal Opportunities Commission, Hong Kong

http://www.eoc.org.hk/default.htm 

Executive Council

http://www.info.gov.hk/info/exco.htm 

Hong Kong Report 1998-2000

http://members.hknet.com/~hkwomen/womenrpt9800.html 

Legislative Council

http://www.legco.gov.hk/english/index.htm 

Legislative Council

http://www.legco.gov.hk/english/text.htm 

LeonLai Online

http://www.leonlai.com 

REELVIEWS: Berardinelli Sees Film

http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/ 

The Need for Objective and Subjective Indicators in Gender Statistics

http://www.eoc.org.hk/message/english/extram2e.html 

Young resource centre

http://www.socialwork.com.hk