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Background
The Chinese woman is responsible for the Inner Sphere – assigned to her gender under The Confucian Thought, a philosophy which has greatly influenced Chinese culture in the past two thousand years.
Over the Millennia, China’s society developed a rich patina of tradition which has, intentionally or otherwise, created enormous social complexities to which the Chinese Woman has had to respond and adapt.
Today, when the status of men and women should be equal, there are many Chinese women who are still suppressed within the boundaries of Chinese tradition.
It is not so much that Chinese society has become accustomed to the belief that women should be regarded as inferior and therefore submissive to men – but that women themselves have developed a subconscious belief that they should be so.
Perhaps this explains why the great majority of Chinese women endure a “double burden” – doing well in the “Inner Sphere” as a wife and mother – and at the same time contributing meanfully within the workforce in the “Outer Sphere” which represents self-fulfillment and all other achievement.
