Posted on 07/17/2021 9:43:27 PM PDT by nickcarraway
When a 7-year-old boy said he wanted to wear a skirt to school “because it’s breezy and pretty”, his parents weren’t too surprised. They went to the mall with their son, who then picked out a blue skirt.
But when his father wrote about the experience on social media, it sparked a discussion about gender-neutral education in China.
The father, a 31-year-old stay-home dad in Beijing who called himself Haixing, wrote on question and answer website Zhihu last month about his son’s experience.
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“My wife and I were fully prepared for what we’re facing today, and admired our son’s courage because he knows girls wear skirts,” the father wrote.
But as their son entered the school’s gates, he was met with surprise from the security guard and some teachers, who pointed at him and said, “Isn’t that … a skirt?”
When the boy came home that day, he cried. He said some classmates made jokes, but he didn’t mind, what he really minded was another boy lifting up his skirt.
In the afternoon, a teacher publicly criticised him during class, saying “A boy needs to be like a boy, they do not wear skirts.” A few girls in his class stood up to say boys have the freedom to wear skirts and vice versa, but the teacher only retorted “That’s in the US. In China there’s no such ‘freedom’”.
Nationwide-wide controversy The post had roused nationwide-wide controversy. While some praised the parents for their open-mindedness and willingness to break stereotypes, others attacked the father and said he was being “overly politically correct”.
“You are using your son as a tool,” one said on Zhihu. Others called the father ignorant and said “freedom” needs to be restrained.
Cui Le, a PhD student at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education and Social Work with expertise in gender and education, said the public perception of the post reflects how highly controversial gender education still is in China.
“In stark contrast to this father’s practice of an education that respects diversity, the child met all kinds of pressure at school, including criticism from multiple teachers, questioning from a security guard, mockery and bullying from classmates,” he said. “These obstacles show that in Chinese schools, a traditional gender norm still has a dominant position.”
It’s still difficult for those who don’t identify with the mainstream to express themselves, and authorities still lack gender awareness, and this raised concerns about the experience of LGBT students, especially transgender ones, have at school.
Gender education
Just last week, dozens of LGBT WeChat accounts were shut down in an unprecedented crackdown, with many people applauding the move. Their reasoning included homophobic lines like “you can be gay, but don’t influence our young” and “it shouldn’t be a proud thing, if I were handicapped, would I be parading around advertising it?”
In the West, there’s more consensus in gender education to apply critical thinking to binary gender norms, about breaking down gender stereotypes and respecting gender diversity, Cui said.
“For example, in New Zealand, sex and gender education dictates that schools should provide gender-neutral uniforms, and students can choose uniforms and bathrooms based on their free will and gender identity, and teachers should avoid binary gender expressions in teaching, such as dividing students to ‘male and female’,” he said.
China, however, is still dominated by voices pursuing traditional gender norms, especially at the official level.
In February, a document from the Ministry of Education stated that gym classes would be reformed to make Chinese boys “more masculine”.
It was in part to address comments from political advisers that Chinese men had become “weak, cowardly, feminine” and were pursuing an image of “little fresh meat”, a term used in China used to describe pretty young men who often wear makeup, dress neatly, and differ from traditional macho stereotypes.
“It is clear that it’s going to be a long way before gender diversity and equality can be accepted and practised in the education field in China,” Cui said.
China don’t play that s___.
Is the whole world going mad?
i was just thinking that same thing- it’s as if the whole world has gone insane- they would rather believe lies than the truth
"See what happens in countries like the US, where people have too much 'freedom'? Freedom is a bad thing. We can't allow it here in China."
Coz Imma Scot!
The only people who pull these kind of “opposite” stunts are communists and other subversives.
Never happens spontaneously. It’s always orchestrated.
Back in the Clinton years I had thought of moving to New Zealand.
Just as well that I never made the move.
Will this seep into the chicom military? Fingers crossed.
What is also weird is those of the LGBTQWERTY “community” who think they will do fine if American freedom is overthrown and replaced with a Chinese Communist puppet state.
If China folds on this, the delusionals will have won. Kiss reality and sanity good bye.
Agreed.
But Asians generally don’t do PC.
Yes. What worries me is that the US seem to be leading the charge.
Does make you think of this/
2Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
That kid has a death wish. They still use EST on homosexuals, so I can’t imagine what they’ll do here.
I used to badly want to live in California. Now, that’s like voluntarily going to prison.
Scotland is full of schools where bnoys wear skirts 9 kilts) to school. This has been going on for hundreds of years, yet there is not national discussion there about gender roles.
The Scots have solved the problem.
It’s a social-media fad, “Pay attention to Meeeeeee!”
Yes, and they think “Palestine” is vastly superior to Israel.
Beyond ignorant ...
Unlike the West, I think China will just roll over and accept this.
On the other hand, I had a conversation a few months back with some recent Vietnamese immigrants. Was surprised they were very supportive of LGBTQ.
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