Observations of Masculinity and Femininity in China

It was such an interesting experience for me visiting China in the last month of my life. It was one of those life changing events that I don’t know if I will ever be able to formulate into words. I had grown up learning so differently about the way China was that it was one of the most incredible culture shocks of my life.
I participated in a University visit to Peking University and had the time of my life. There I truly gained a new understanding for the people of China and the way of life they lead. Looking at Gender roles was quite unique for me. I had the opportunity to observe gender roles in three different cities as well as the opportunity to experience many different aspects of Chinese culture. I was in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Qingdao where I went to a couple lesbian and gay bars, Disneyland, a university, several temples and tourist attractions, and cultural experiences. I would say my Chinese experience was the most well rounded and culturally rich experience I had thus far on the journey.
What I noticed most of all was the gender roles and how on the surface it seemed pretty equal. There was still a lot of inequality in regards to gender.
The first day in Hong Kong we went to Disneyland where I observed gender roles in ways that I think might be a western import. They had all of their costumes on and performing roles such as waitresses and things like that. But one of the most shocking things about Hong Kong was when I visited the gay and lesbian bars that night with several of my friends. The bars were segregated into two distinct bars that were for only women and only men. On top of that they were closely associated with the sex parlors that would line every other floor in the back of a deep dark ally. This told me that it was still a backwards underground part of the society, but a part of the society none the less.
When we would walk into the bars we would notice that they were exclusively for men and for women and when we tried walking into a gay bar, they physically pushed us out of the doors because we had so many women there with us. We then went to another bar where we were welcomed because we had only two guys with us and many more women.
At the lesbian bar, it was interesting because all of the Chinese women hhung out together in a little click and they there was us. It was fun, we noticed there were a few men in the group but we soon realized that they were men. We learned after talking to them that in lesbian culture, they take on gender roles. So in lesbian relationships, they will still play into the roles assigned to men and women in society. Now maybe this is more to do with social pressures of fiting the norms, but at the same time it may just be because they are still getting used to the idea of two women being together as women o two men being together as men. The biggest thing that stuck out to me was just the simple fact that there was no transgender identity. It was you were either gay or tstraight and while there were cross dressing people, there was still no identity associated with them No label that they could form a community around. If I was a t ransgendered person in this society I would have to align myself with the gay and lesban community also still associated with deviancy.
While I was in Bejing visiting the university another thing I noticed was the cultural shiness of the women in the room. It’s not that they weren’t outgoing or open, but they were all very reserved and quiet. Maybe this has something to do with the religious practice of respecting space and not interfering with it, just like I noticed in Japan, but at the same time I also felt it had a little more to do with gender roles and gender construction. The women of the group seemed to be reserved and quiet which I attributed to their roles in society as passive and non-aggressive compared to the men who were very outgoing and very willing to do things that the women were more reserved to doing. In fact I noticed in our questioning of them that the men seemed to be more willing to engage in dialogue about social politics and things of that nature than the women were. Maybe that had something to with their views on confrontation or not, but that is something I definitely noticed.
Another striking component dealing with both masculinity and femininity was the fact that when I would speak to people they were all very soft spoken. Maybe they aren’t and I am just very loud, but for instance, our tour guide was a very soft spoken man and we had a hard time understanding him over the mike. We kept saying could you turn it up please, could you turn it up? But then our trip leader go ton and we understood her just fine and could hear her clearly. It was something I noticed not only in Chinese but in eastern cultures. Everywhere I went people were so quiet which I really valued. Like when I was in Hiroshima and I could here the jingling of keys in a mans pockets several meters away. It is something that I really liked and reminded me of why I like morning so much, because everything seems to be in so much peace and harmony.
Ultimately in China I realized greatly the gender disparities between men and women and these I feel stem primarily from a historical identity surrounded by the differences in men and women. These differences vary from the jobs that people have, to the every day roles that they undertake. The people I spoke with and the things I saw around the city would dictate to me this gender disparity, but as I examine it, not as much as when I’m in the United States. The advertising was nothing like Japan where women became objectified. No, women in China didn’t seem to be seen as sexually explicit, which I appreciated, and yet at the same time I wonder how open sexuality is there.
All in all, China was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and I truly loved every minute of it!!