Women's Education Quotes
Although Mao attempted to reform Chinese sexist culture and practice, his and other efforts are taking hold very slowly. Into the 21st century, the Chinese Communist party included women but not at the highest levels where the traditional practice of selecting leaders was to choose elderly males. Part of the prejudice agaist female leaders results from Chinese history where women have ruled or controlled China at several points, but none performed well. This is unlike the experiences of England, India, Israel, and other nations where women have been very successful and respected leaders. There is an American NGO in China, providing assistance to women, which has adopted the name “Half the Sky” and it is the title of a book by Nicholas Kristoff and a record album by Ruby Turner.
This was quite a radical, feminist statement at the time. But it gives us a good insight into the sexism that then existed where for many the belief was that a young woman would be harmed by a college education.
This observation has never been really taken seriously until the women’s movement stimulated historical and sociological studies to test such a hypothesis. More and more people are finding that Tocqueville may have been right on this point albeit still not a majority of scholarly opinion.
This remarkable statement was written in about 1840 and there was probably then few people of either gender who would think such a thing possible.
In contemporary Iran, no one has any freedom in the International and Western sense of freedom. There is no freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to travel, freedom of the press, freedom of dress, or other fundamental freedoms of not only the West but the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. However, within those restrictions, women tend to be treated more equally than in other Islamic Middle Eastern nations. Not completely equal as they have many additional restrictions that males do not have, but they can work, freely, teach and hold some positions of responsibility and power which women may not do in much of the Islamic world.
