Shut up! It’s My Life!

When I was a little girl, I was dressed in pink dresses and given dolls to play with. As I grew up and was old enough to make my own choices, I started to fill my wardrobe with black and play race car models with boys. “Pink was never my color, and I have never befriended with a doll!” I later told my mom. “Well, you know, that’s how a girl is supposed to be like” she said.

When I graduated from college, I became a professional woman with ideas and enthusiasm to prove myself. Then people started telling me how pathetic and unhappy successful professional women end up, and that the better life for women is to find a rich guy, get married and start a family before “beauty and freshness start to wither”. “I like my life now. I enjoy working, being economically independent and single for the time being”, I said. “It’s what women are supposed to do, and what others expect from them”, they said.

Despite of being different, I never stopped believing that my life should be in MY total control. It’s not easy, for the social environment is not always friendly. Yet I firmly believe that women should be given the right to choose their own path and live their own life.

The traditions dominating today’s society are created by men and serve the needs of men. Such traditions take women as accessories of men, and render no space for women’s own thoughts and voices. We are fed with what to do, what is supposed to be, what should be right for us… But have they ever asked what we want?!

Many talented, educated and able women have their dreams to become physicists, lawyers, politicians, or simply working ladies in any profession, alongside being wives and moms. But there’s always someone telling them: “A woman’s place is home.” As long as tradition persists, there will always be women facing the dilemma of being THE WOMEN they don’t want to be.

Struggling with thousands of others in the same dilemma, I turn to worldpulse community for power charge and tools to fight against the suppressing tradition. Instead of keeping “equal rights for women” a political propaganda, we sisters should unite and push for gender equality, a recognition of women being equals to men.

Shenzhen, the city where I live, has just past a municipal legislation to promote gender equality, the very first in China. It’s an enchanting start, yet still a long way to re-path a tradition so deeply rooted in a male-dominating society. I’m now writing a thesis on policy analysis of this legislation, and hopefully, after gaining knowledge from worldpulse community, I could make more effective and powerful recommendations to improve the legislation, and advocate for a change in the bigger environment.

This all starts with recognizing women’s rights as human rights. And yes, it’s our rights, our choice, our life! Anybody else please SHUT UP!