Patriarchy"Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. Some patriarchal societies are also patrilineal, meaning that property and title are inherited by the male lineage." |
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Patriarchy leads to severe inequality amongst adults, as quoted by Wikipedia, mens have the privilege to dominate as big as the politics/society and as small as families internally. Women on the other hand are severely disempowered or neglected in first place, which generates problematic long-term effects.
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According to World Bank, women percentage in the entire world population has gone from 49.985 % in 1960 down to 49.556 % in 2017.
China in particular, progressed in an unstable parabolic trend. Specifically, the trend can be observed and interpreted as a long term effect of patriarchy. |
The cause of patriarchy is attributed to long-term ideologies/beliefs as a result of sexism and gender stereotypes that women are weaker physically and mentally. Females, as a result, lack the ability to make their own choices and live through their lives in a constantly passive attitude to their male counterparts. China in the past had severe patriarchy as a result of the one-child policy, causing families to find male children desirable and implement abortion unethically. This is because of the belief that if family will only get to raise up one child, it would have to be a male who will competently support the survival of entire family in the case of hardship. This causes the imbalance of gender population, with male children being the majority.
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The value system built into China's society on gender prioritization is still prevalent in the society today as a result of the marginalization towards female children in education. Father can possess high authority to children in many aspects of life.
Education is a large part of the Chinese society due to the well-known value that academic success is the window for opportunities to achieve a better life. Extent of financial support from father of family can play decisive role on children's life through education. Fathers with financial capabilities will essentially bring children the opportunity towards better place of residence and education. Overall, large pathway on life direction are common choices made by father to expect their children to reach academic and employment success. Mothers however can have different stance, opinion, and expectation against their husband but are unable to manifest them due to customary voice suppression from husband.
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Especially to female children, mothers due to their childhood experiences of marginalization, share a greater connection to them but are given very limited voice/rights to bring opportunities to daughters. This as a long term effect, causes imbalance of educational opportunities for female students.
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In the Chinese culture, a typical family structure includes men taking responsibility as the primary source of income for living while women are also expected to work but focusing more towards taking care of family members such as the children and the elderly. This rapidly concentrates the power on males because their roles and importance are emphasized while that which of their female counterparts' are marginalized.
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