The Independence of women: Rethinking the Role of Wife and Mother

The Independence of women: Rethinking the Role of Wife and Mother

In the past, women are required to live under the power of men. Most of them receive little education and have to take care of their family. For example, in traditional Chinese society, the old saying once said that there are three obedience women should comply with: obey to father before marriage, to husband after marriage, and to son after the death of husband (三從). It shows that women’s life is generally controlled by men in the society. However, in modern society, the power of the obedience is obviously weaker than before. With higher education, nowadays women have more power to decide their life. They have the ability to make their own living. There are institutions to advocate the sexual equality. It seems that women’s status is evolving into a new era. However, independence of women is not completely accepted by the society due to typical stereotypes of women, male chauvinism and opposition on unmarried women having children.

        It seems that there are still some social stereotype restrict the development of women’s independence. The terms of calling single men and women can show that how general people have different concepts toward them such as bachelors and spinsters. In a film clip of “Luck be an Old Lady” (2002) from a popular American series Sex and the City, Carrie is going to have a blind date. She tells her best friends Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda about her decision. Two of her friends seem not support her decision. Charlotte says that there are some couples she knows that meet on blind dates and she reminds Carrie, “You have to take risks so you don’t wind up an old maid.” And then Miranda asks, “Why do we get stuck with old maid and spinster and men get to be bachelors and playboys?” Her words point out directly that people have a stereotype of single men and women.

        What is the impression of bachelors and spinsters? According to the article Bachelors Vs Spinsters written by Nimisha Mittal (2004), she writes:

“Bachelors in stories are usually fat and cheerful, jolly and rich. But they're still eligible. Spinsters, on the other hand, are usually characterized as being grouchy and ugly, with quick tempers and quicker tongues. In books, a girl is always terrified at the prospect of dying 'an old maid', but which boy ever had nightmares about remaining a bachelor all his life?”

It shows the difference between the impression of bachelors and spinsters. Bachelors may be regarded as a positive figure and spinsters are negative. Nimisha Mittal later mentions that “Also, Bachelor parties are the coolest bashes under the sun after Siberian polar bears' rendezvous, but who ever heard of 'spinster parties'? (not to be confused with 'ladies' night', which is something entirely different).” Until now, we can form a basic idea that single women are still restricted by the concept that marriage is the unavoidable destination for them. Take the Sex and the City as an example. Carrie Brandshaw is a weekly column writer of New York’s newspaper and also the writer of magazine. She lives in a fashionable and nice lifestyle, but, even though she has such a good life, she is still afraid of winding up as an old maid and wants to get married. Just like Carrie, women are more independent than before. But the independence does not totally imply that women are unwilling to get married. Women with good education now can get good jobs to earn their own living and look for their ideal husbands at the same time. Their abilities make them have a better choice of partners; however, it may not be easy to find a person they are willing to marry. As a result, women tend to get married later. Obviously, the independence of women is confined by the social stereotype on the single women.

Another important concept related to single women is male chauvinism that males have the sense which they are superior to females. It used to be described a person’s extreme patriotism, and later turned to be a negative description that men think their status is higher than women in the society. In the past, the society is dominated by the concept of male chauvinism that women are thought to be subordinates of men. In most of the families, fathers are responsible for raising their families and regarded as dominated characters in families. Today, the situation might still be prevalent, but some females started to rethink the hidden meaning.

Look at the following; it is a mother’s reaction about the post she receives from her daughter’s school:

“They also said that both parents should come and if it is not possible, at least the father should come. It appeared perfectly normal at first but after a bit of thinking I started to find some hidden meaning in it. At least father should come- is the only thing harassing me for the past week. Why is the father so superior when it comes to choose between mother and father?”

Another example of male chauvinism is that parent-teacher meeting is thought to be a meeting that mothers should attend in Taiwan. That is because our society thinks that mother is responsible for the family cares, and it is their duty to take care of children. However, nowadays lots of women have the ability to share the burden of raising the family, or make living for themselves. In the past, people have the concept that women need to rely on men to survive. Women’s duty is to take care of the family, that is to say, their social character is to become wives and mothers. It is probably a reason why people used to think that unmarried women are the “losers”, because they fail to the social expectation. Male chauvinism influences people’s concept of thinking about different gender of singles. As previous example, the terms we call the single man is eligible bachelor. On the contrary, when it comes to single women, people may think of the terms like old maids and spinsters. The former gives us such an attractive impression of male, and the latter, however, make us think of an old lady who is odd and lonely. Comparing these two impressions, single male seems to be more acceptable than single female, which may be under the influence of male chauvinism.

Last but not least, nowadays there is a group of women who are over thirty years old, independent, and not willing to get married yet. They may not want to have husbands, but they have the desire to have their own babies. However, after thirty years old, the condition of women’s fertility will become worse than before, and it will be difficult for them to have babies when they are getting older. Therefore, they have two ways to choose: to be pregnant by means of artificial insemination, or to adopt children.

Recently in Taiwan, the fertility rate keeps going down, probably is related to the condition that more and more women choose to get married late or don’t want to get married. Do these unmarried women have the right to have babies via artificial insemination? According to the survey (2010), among 2322 respondents, 46.1% of them thought that these women have the right to be the mother, but that 37.3% of them think that it will have problems if children have no father. Opponents think it is not fair to the children. Because in the conventional concept most of people expect general family involves a father, mother and their children. But if an unmarried woman wants to have the baby via artificial insemination by donor, there may be no father in this family. The children will get the love only from mother, but lack of the love from father. Moreover, in Taiwan, unmarried women face the restriction which makes them unable to have their own babies. In the news (Shr, 2009), the director of the Awakening Foundation, which works for improving women’s right, points out that government should loosen the Artificial Reproduction Act.

According to the Artificial Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) (The Legislative Yuan of Republic of China, 2007), now the technique of artificial insemination is only allowed to use on the married couple suffering from sterility(不孕症), and it is specific to the couple that involves a man and a woman. Therefore, other kinds of people such as homosexual couples, and the unmarried women who want to have their own babies, are excluded by the law. On the other hand, according to the civil law in Taiwan, there is no explicit regulation that singles cannot adopt the children, but it is not easy for unmarried women to adopt one. If they choose to be pregnant via artificial insemination, they need to spend a lot of money and go to other countries, because unmarried women are not allowed to use the technique of artificial insemination. Even though they want to adopt children, they should be evaluated by the social workers from the adoption organization in a strict criterion, and finally they are still not allowed to adopt children because they are unmarried. In this case in the news (Shr, 2009), a lady wants to adopt a little girl; she is the girl’s aunt. She lives well and has stable income. Most important of all, she takes care of her niece since she’s little. However, the judge refuses her request to adopt the girl, because the lady doesn’t get married yet. Apparently, the society is still influenced by the concept of “couple family”, rejecting single family with unmarried women and children.

Both of the ways may not be available for unmarried women who have the desire to be mothers. They are excluded by the law, and their unmarried situation makes them have difficulty in adopting children. Why are the unmarried women deprived of the right to become mothers just because they don’t have husbands? They have enough love for the children, and also have the ability to make her children live in a good life. Indeed, unmarried women’s right to become mothers should not be deprived of. The law has its concern, but there must be some space for discussing. And the potential limit in adoption should be revised. Since there is no restriction in the civil law, the unmarried women, under the condition that they have enough ability, should be permitted to adopt the children through the legitimate process.Nevertheless, 46.1% of respondents from the mentioned survey thought that unmarried women have the right to be mothers. Supporters claim that even in a father-involved family, if the father abuse the child, the situation will not better than only have a mother. On the other hand, the divorce rate in this society becomes higher and higher. It even has been the highest in Asia (National Policy Foundation, NPF Commentary, 2007). Children may suffer lots of hurt from the separating of their parents. Also, staying single is not an unchangeable condition, maybe the single lady will finally find her ideal mate in the future. Hence, if an unmarried woman has the ability to take care of her children by herself, and also wants to be a mother, giving her love to her baby, it is a good way to fulfill her life as a woman. Moreover, it also can enhance the fertility rate at the same time.

In conclusion, women are more independent now, but they still don’t have the complete independence. If they get married late, they would be thought as the old maid or spinsters. In the family, they are responsible for taking care of family, but the dominated one is the father. Moreover, if they don’t want to be wives but they want to be mothers, the law sets the restriction to exclude them. And even they want to adopt the children, they are potentially restricted by the examination. Thus, more time for complete independence of women is still needed in the future.

References

Chian Ling. S. (May, 10, 2009). Single women want to be mother, expecting that government can loosen the restrictions. Retrieved from http://www.lihpao.com/?action-viewnews-itemid-8995  Lihpao news.

Mittal. N. (2004) Bachelors Vs Spinsters. Retrieved from http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=3523

Reddy. K. (2008) Why is Male Chauvinism so Prevalent? Retrieved from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/860137/why_is_male_chauvinism_so_prevalent.html?cat=41. July, 11, 2008, Yahoo! Contributor Network

Shun Min. W. (June, 26, 2007). Interpret Taiwan’s Highest Divorce Rate in Asia. National Policy Foundation, NPF Commentary, 2007

Star. D. (2002). Luck be an Old Lady, Sex and the City season 5, episode 3. USA.

Tsz Yu. Y. (November, 21, 2010). Being content with having babies and not worried about being single parent family. Retrieved from http://tw.news.yahoo.com/%E4%B8%8D%E6%93%94%E5%BF%83%E5%96%AE%E8%A6%AA-%E6%9C%89%E5%AD%90%E8%90%AC%E4%BA%8B%E8%B6%B3.html. Yahoo! News. (Original from Chinatimes.com)