for everyone’s context. Throughout history women have always been subordinated to men,
and it was not something that occurred. The bond that unites women to their oppressors is
not comparable to any other (Beauvior 258). The state of gender inequality is socially
unescapable. By objectifying women as reproductive machine, sexual being and domestic
slave, there’s no mainstream view that seem to consider was how a girl felt (Plath 81).
“A mantra my mother has repeated throughout my life is, “I’m a lawyer, a mother,
a wife, a daughter, a driver, a cooker, a babysitter, a cleaner and a teacher” . After the Mao
era, most Chinese women have contradictory attitudes regarding sexuality between tradi-
tion and modernity. Education told them to be independent, strong and responsible; yet
traditions still expect them to be attractive, obedient and family-focused (Ren 36). My
mother is the typical women with “second shift”, who have two jobs: in the work place
and at home. Since my dad is the only boy in a traditional rural family, family chores were
never his charge, but my grandma’s and aunts’. Therefore, my dad and I spontaneously
disregard my mother to her effort at housework, but only consider it’s female’s well-de-
served. She also got used to it, because most of the women around her were facing the
same situation. I suddenly realized that gender consciousness produce habitual bodily
mannerisms that feel natural and become unconscious after long use (Alcoff 108). After
being a “feminist” for a year, I finally feel the oppression is everywhere, even in my own
house.
Women body in the gaze is another type of oppression. Of course. It also happened
on me. “Oh my god! Am I wearing shorts?” I suddenly realized that I was wearing shorts,
walking on the street, with no hesitation. That’s such a surprise for me. Every summer, the
first day of wearing shorts was always my big issue. It means exposing skin, showing fat,
avoiding eyes. I asked my mom again and again, “Am I fat? Is she skinner than me? Do I
have muscles?” All this anxiety told me that if I don’t have a “beach body”, I don’t have
rights to enjoy summer. However, I never considered who set the standard? Why should I
fit in? Am I seeking security? For being a womanly woman? Am I treating myself as a
passive, inert given object for another’s gaze (Beauvoir 306)?
Since social media exploded, over-photoshop, over-diet, over-comment became
young generation’s new lifestyle. Everything is industrialized, even beauty. Beauvior
stated that women appear essentially to the male as a sexual being. She is defined and