Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "China Doesn't Like That I'm a Single Woman, Here's Why | Op-Docs" video.

@ceceliaellis9916 The women aren't rebelling so much. It's just that now many of them are well educated. They have lives that don't necessarily revolve around the kitchen and they don't want to give those up for some schmuck who can't see the value in a woman in her thirties or forties. There's a huge disconnect between Chinese conservative values and modern Chinese life. Men want to marry women in their twenties. Women want to marry men who are more successful than they are. There are a lot of relationships that fit these criteria but Chinese women are more driven and more successful than they ever have been and because of that there are many people whose lives have taken them out of these marriageable categories. At some point people are going to have to compromise or give up on the traditional family model. Of course, their families are going to be pushing hard for the former over the latter.
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Shelley Fitch China did create the shortage, as you said, with the one-child policy which rammed full force against the Confucian tradition of male child preference. They also exacerbated the problem by affording economic opportunities for women that allowed them to be independent adults. From the perspective of the country, these are unfortunate growing pains that come with graduating into a modern enlightened society, and from the country's perspective it's very much worth it. That's not to say that there isn't a lot of individual suffering during this transition.
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@cookncrook6902 I think there are going to be a lot of men and women who are going to be unable to attract the mates they want. Whether or not they mate at all will depend on whether they are willing to settle for what's available. Women are no longer dependent on husbands to have a non-marginalized role in society, and, parents aside, no longer have that social pressure to wed. Without that matrimonial dependency men have less to offer and their role within a marriage is harder to sustain, and frankly, in many cases it's not worth the heartburn for men to try, and I stress the word try, to live up to the ridiculous standards necessary to keep a modern wife impressed.
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