UNWORTHY RECEIVERS Alongside ‘destined givers’, there are ‘unworthy receivers’ – daughters disqualified from receiving not because of what they have done, but because they are born female. These daughters are treated as worthless or contemptible, not worthy of receiving anything substantial. This happens from birth with everything from food provision to education and to inheritance. Sons are the ‘haves’, daughters are the ‘have-nots’. They are explicitly marginalised; told they should be grateful for all they receive – even if their brother gets 10 times more; and expected to repay what they receive with greater reciprocity. They might receive similar resources when it comes to entertainment, or education, but for key items such as housing, which is extremely expensive in places like Shanghai and Beijing, daughters almost never inherit. Parents will tell them, ‘I have never mistreated you; I have always been fair; you have received the education from me; you have received goods and clothes. So, you should not ask for more. You are being greedy.’ Men in that situation are not greedy if they ask for more. Daughters are told to treat their brothers well, because the male sibling is the one who will inherit everything – they carry forward the surname and the bloodline – and daughters are treated as a guest, an outsider, in their own homes. These same parents will ask their daughters to look after them when they get older, but the resources all go to the son. They expect the daughters to do this with little to no resources offered. MARTYR GIVERS Finally, there are ‘martyr givers’, daughters made to feel so indebted to their families that they must repay their debts and more – the debt of receiving life, an education, food etc. They are expected to endlessly give. They endure a stressful, thankless role as the provider for their families, sacrificing their own wellbeing to improve everyone else’s. These demands can continue well beyond when a daughter leaves home and has a family of her own, with profound negative consequences for their social relationships. Constantly being pestered for money, they often lose their friendship circles or significant relationships, as they are labelled a ‘Fu Di Mo’ – a ‘monster of younger brother worshipping’. This is a term used to ridicule sisters who selflessly devote themselves to supporting their younger brothers at all costs because of early family socialisation. One of the examples I came across was a girl who received spending money from her boyfriend, and she felt she had to give it to her mother. But the mother still felt it was not enough. Some of these women were made to borrow money from friends, from boyfriends, from husbands, to continue satisfying their own natal families. When they are married, some might even bring their families with them into the marital home and use the husband’s resources to raise their siblings. They thus obtain a bad name in the marriage market. That is another reason they face difficulties in breaking out of the cycle. There is an urban saying in China. Girls should not marry a “Male Phoenix” – a man from a rural area who has moved to one of the big cities, but his family still has rural attitudes; and men should not marry a Fu Di Mo. The view is these women will drain your resources to provide for their natal family. HARD TO ESCAPE Most, if not all, daughters feel helpless and frustrated by the tradition of son preference. They might have the chance to escape, but often they do not. They feel they have no choice but to stay in the family relationship. They have been subjugated for years, decades, living with overwhelming internal pressure that demands them to give more than they can reasonably afford. Sustained family exploitation does not just happen. It is an ideological process of becoming that starts in early childhood with constant reminders of debts, obligations, and normalising exploitation. Only by exposing these practices can we start to transform them with relevant public and social policymaking and advocacy. In sum, sexism is like racism. It has not really gone away despite of years of campaigning and improved education (e.g., the Black Lives Matter Movement) but by continuing to shed light on the issues, we can keep making progress at tackling social inequality in contemporary societies. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 45 Dr Chih-Ling Liu is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Marketing. Her research investigates the intersections of consumption, self, and identity. This article is based on The even darker side of gift-giving: Understanding sustained exploitation in the family consumption system by Dr ChihLing Liu, of Lancaster University Management School, published in the journal Marketing Theory. chihling.liu@lancaster.ac.uk
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