Image: REUTERS
China’s latest plan to ‘cultivate masculinity’ with more gym classes and male teachers is outrageous and anti-women. The implementation of the proposed plan at a national level will mean reverting to feudal patriarchal values where men become violent and assertive. It is a reminder of the pre-communist days of China.
It is rubbish to say that if a student taught by a lady teacher would turn 'effeminate’ or 'sissy’. If that was the case then half of the population in the US or UK would have become effeminate and sissy.
In most countries, women are largely responsible for teaching children in primary, secondary or senior secondary schools. Who teaches you, who feeds you, who plays with you, are not important. Teaching by a lady teacher does not make anyone 'effeminate’. A student can learn some `mannerism’ or tends to copy but it does not make him effeminate. It is yet another move by the state to decide how to groom 'boys’.
Reports emanating from China indicate that in all probability, the plan will be implemented at an industrial scale/level. However, the Chinese Education Ministry’s “Proposal on Preventing the Feminization of Male of Adolescents,” has evoked strong reactions from the international community. If China succeeds in desensitizing the entire population about the gender issue and promotes masculinity then it would have far-reaching consequences for China and its people. It would also mean that the ideas of Mao Zedong, Chinese communist revolutionary on equality or gender sensitivity will go out of the window.
The scariest thing about the plan is the scale at which it will be implemented. The plan intends to groom boys as `assertive’ and `aggressive’. It will reverse the growth of China by a few hundred years because patriarchal values will be detrimental for China and the world both. If Chinese boys are groomed as an `assertive’ lot, will create havoc in China and abroad.
The controversial plan is anti-women in more than one way. Chinese women will be thrown out of teaching jobs as men will be hired for physical training and teaching in primary and secondary schools. Also, women will be deprived of the development and growth of the country. Hence, whatever gender equality or gender parity had been achieved by China till now will soon be lost. Cases of domestic violence against women are bound to increase in future. More and more rape cases by Chinese army personnel are also not ruled out.
The proposed plan has been widely criticized in China and elsewhere in the country. Mental health experts and women activists have opposed the idea of `masculinity issue’. When China had scrapped its one-child policy, the government had drawn criticism at that point as well because they said that the state has no business regulating how many children people have.
It is not the first time that China faced criticism world-wide for controversial policies. It drew criticism from several countries last year when deadly Coronavirus spread globally and doomed economies across the globe. It had even faced global criticism for implementing the controversial 'one-child policy’ way back in 1979.
UNFPA had withdrawn its funding support to various programmes of the Chinese government because of the coercive nature of the one-child norm. Since it was an anti-rights policy so UN had refused to offer support to China. The 'one-child policy’ brought up a generation of self-centred citizens. From having too many old people, the policy had diminished the workforce as well. Also, most couples in China could hardly think of imparting moral values to their wards. They were not encouraging their sons to join the military.
China had finally scrapped in 2015 and allowed all couples to have two children for the first time since draconian family planning rules were introduced more than three decades ago.
In a statement published by Xinhua, the official news agency, the Communist party had said, “The change of policy is intended to balance population development and address the challenge of an ageing population.”
The decision to allow all couples to have two children came under criticism because the Communist Party continued to control the size of Chinese families.