Women's Careers (Yang Zhihua)

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"Women are more narrow-minded than men; women are more jealous than men." These two remarks are often on people's lips. When women hear these words, they will certainly retort: "We women can never accept these fallacies. Though there are some women who are narrow-minded and get jealous easily, aren't there also men like that? Probably, men are even more narrow-minded and jealous than women!" It might be right for women to say this, but do women's actions bear this out? If so, how often?

Traditionally, women's position in society is lower than that of men and their life is more boring than men's. This is because women cannot be independent and have to rely on men. The root cause of women's dependence on men is the fact that women, confined and conditioned by the social-historical forces, have accepted the fallacy that, because of differences in ability, it is men and not women who are entitled to freedom, knowledge, power, and careers. Upper-class women may appear happy and glorious; yet that is only an appearance. It is completely unnatural, for they are only parasites relying on their men and their wealth and power. At the same time, women from poor families are restricted by their parents since childhood, and are controlled by their husbands after marriage. If married to the wrong men, they end up being miserable slaves all their lives. Their life is truly tiresome and unhappy!

In recent years, many have advocated women's education and equality, and there are schools and institutions to educate women of bourgeois and middle-class background. Nowadays, there are also women who, thanks to their education, have acquired good jobs, such as working for banks, factories, and telephone and telegraph companies. Life for these women is much better than life for the average woman; but it is still questionable whether they can be entirely independent.

My observations suggest that women tend to lack confidence in their own strength and fear competition with men. This is because men, being the favored gender in history, have always monopolized the most powerful positions in all institutions, leaving women behind as mere assistants. There are nowadays many working women in our society. However, in order to keep their jobs, many of them have to kiss the asses of the men in power. If they cannot get close to those men, they try to win favors from those who are their bosses or who are close to the highest positions. In their relations with female colleagues, these women try all sorts of tricks to ridicule and put down others so that they themselves can monopolize all the power. Do you think this kind of woman can stand tall in society? Of course not! Their behavior clearly tells men that "we have no strength, cannot be independent, and have to rely on others; we are narrow-minded and prone to jealousy! In order to keep my job, I ought to resort to such means." Once their baneful behaviors are brought to light, they are disdained by their bosses and attacked by their peers and thus lose their careers. These women not only become dependent on others but are also despised and discarded by society. What difference is there between these women and those who have never had any schooling?

When we educated women receive good opportunities in society, we should think of those women who have been denied education and those who are mistreated by men. We should intensify our efforts whenever we think of their suffering. We have to rely on ourselves eventually and try not to depend on men. As for our fellow women, we should help each other and never fall into the trap of jealousy. We have to rely on our own strengths, for jealousy never helps us—it only harms our careers!

No matter what kind of position we occupy in society, we as women have to respect ourselves as well as others. Working women especially should bear this in mind. One has to rely on one's own strength; wouldn't it be good if we could openly compete with men in broad daylight?