[reaganaut1]

Maureen Dowd should have taken some of this advice. And according to the "rules", some pictures need to be posted.

[Vaquero]

Leftover Women?

in country that practices abortion and infanticide on girl babies?

preposterous. unless the Chicoms have a large bone smuggling male population.

[bmwcyle]

This woman is so sad a man will not love here. She has to write a piece about women in China.

[bert]

In America, the leftover women are called “the NOW gang”

[Varda]

You're right, she should have but she followed feminist advice to pursue career first. So she lost out on the marriage front. Men want to marry youth and looks and women want a successful husband. To maximize that, women would have to put finding husband first and career second but that's not what girls are taught.

I think Chinese women are more aware of the risks so if they pursue careers they know it's at the expense of marriage.

[SC_Pete]

The one child policy has caused a demographic nightmare for the Chinese: they don’t have enough people to accomodate necessary future growth in the economy. Necessary to avoid mass insurrection. India will probably outgrow China because the trends are more favorable.

[patriotsblood]

Come to America, where a fat, dumb and fugly girl can still be Secretary of State.

[Teacher317]

I met several very attractive Chinese women in their late 20's and early 30's who were considered "unattractive" by Chinese standards... weighing barely over 115, or having slightly dark skin, under 5'2 or over 5'7, or educated, or having an earning potential higher than most men, etc... who would tell me that I should pursue a younger (early 20's) Chinese girl, because I was too successful to "settle" for them, no matter how many times I assured them that by American standards, they were wonderful!

(Of course, they may have just been finding polite ways to reject my initial interest, but it didn't seem like it.)

[BobL]

No surprise they’re seeing the same problems that the West has. Until ‘liberation’, women didn’t really have a choice - they had to get married. Now they can pursue a career and not get married, or get married and not have kids. Give women the option of not bearing the next generation, some will take it. It’s a simply a choice.

But when too many take it, then the population nose-dives, as we’re seeing in virtually all of the West. Yes, there are still kids, but far, far, fewer, and not nearly enough to keep up with the needed replacement rate. Immigration (both kinds) is the only thing keeping this country from the same death spiral, and that is not healthy in the long run either.

[Lorianne]

Seems to me there are far more ‘left over’ men in China, there being a serious sex imbalance in the population.

Stygmatizing these women is a way to try to paper over that dire problem is my guess.

[fso301]

Beauty standards can vary. I’ve been told large feet could render a woman considered smoking hot by American standards unappealing in parts of China.

[Chode]

we have NOW, they have LOW, same same...

[Lazamataz]

I’ll take the leftovers.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Pretty girls don’t need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family, but girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult. These kinds of girls hope to further their education in order to increase their competitiveness. The tragedy is, they don’t realize that as women age, they are worth less and less, so by the time they get their M.A. or Ph.D., they are already old, like yellowed pearls.

Many highly educated “leftover women” are very progressive in their thinking and enjoy going to nightclubs to search for a one-night stand, or they become the mistress of a high official or rich man. It is only when they have lost their youth and are kicked out by the man, that they decide to look for a life partner. Therefore, most “leftover women” do not deserve our sympathy.

The main reason many girls become “leftover women” is that their standards for a partner are too high … As girls are not too picky, finding a partner should be as easy as blowing away a speck of dust.

When holding out for a man, if you say he must be rich and brilliant, romantic and hardworking ... this is just being willful. Does this kind of perfect man exist? Maybe he does exist, but why on earth would he want to marry you?

Wow - that's more unvarnished truth than we've seen in a single New York Times column in at least 80 years! :)

[buffaloguy]

They should come to America. Our standards are a bit different. They probably match their needs.