Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 1

Chinese Mothers and Daughters in a Changing Society

I am a strong woman, you know.
Strong and clever. Just like my mother.
Thats why we didnt talk to each other for a year.
Linggan, 30


Introduction

After their1949 victory, the Chinese Communist Party encouraged women to take
equal part in creating the New China. Mao Zedongs famous quote women
hold up half the sky reflected the new policies of encouraging women to
participate in the workplace and celebrating them as comrades contributing
equally to the revolution. Movius (2004) writes that in the films, songs, books
and plays of the 1950s and 1960s, the brave female soldier, farmer, or worker
was celebrated, encouraging women to focus on their Socialist character and
contribution to society. This is also echoed in Landsbergers Chinese
Propaganda Posters series (2003). However, as we will see, for many Chinese
women the reality of their lives didnt mirror this ideal of participation and gender
equality.

Since the launching of economic reforms and the opening-up policy at the end of
1978, China has undergone profound changes. Western feminists argue that
these changes have not necessarily meant an improvement for women, and that
indeed the introduction of capitalism has created new barriers and is pushing
women back into their traditional roles of pretty girls and good mothers. (Movius
2004; Brownwell & Wasserstrom eds. 2002; Croll 1995)

Chinese feminists Zhang and Wu, however, in their article Discovering the
Positive Within the Negative: The Womens Movement in a Changing China
advise the reader to not use Western standards of what counts as a women's
movement to evaluate Chinese women, as "women develop their strategies and
agenda as they go along" (1995, 43).

In my research project I am asking young Chinese women how they themselves
perceive the changes between their own lives and the lives of their mothers. As
these women were born just before and after Chinas economic reforms were
launched, and their mothers just before and shortly after the Communist Partys
victory and its implementation of equality policies for women, their and their
mothers lives are a good reflection of the changes in the social status of women
in the past fifty years, and especially the changes caused by Chinas rapid
development since its opening-up policy and embracing of market economy.

Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 2
Although change can be exciting, it often is a trigger of great anxiety and can be
resisted not only by oneself, but also by people in the immediate environment
who might feel threatened and challenged by change in general, and by the
change of a loved one in particular. Therefore, a focus of my research was
whether the social changes in China and its impact on young women are a
source of conflict within their families, especially with their mothers, and how
young Chinese women and their mothers resolve these conflicts.

I will argue that, although womens equality has been promoted in China for fifty
years and although these policies had a big impact on the lives of many Chinese
women, others, especially in remote rural areas, did not benefit from these
policies. However, through the economic reforms and Chinas opening-up policy,
the lives of their daughters have drastically improved. That although on the
whole, it may seem to Western women that like in Western countries there is
a danger of women being pushed back into their traditional roles again, young
Chinese women have a clear idea of what they want from their lives and develop
their own strategies for dealing with social change and the conflicts this might
cause, and that they are doing so with Chinese characteristics
1
.


Methodology

I interviewed six women between the ages of 24 and 30 years. All were born in
small villages
2
and now live in Kunming at least part of the year. None of them
are married, although one has been living with her boyfriend for eight years.
Another one has a boyfriend who lives in another city and they only see each
other occasionally. The others are single. All of them are heterosexual. Four of
the women are Han Chinese, one is Bai nationality and another one is Naxi. Two
of the women I interviewed are sisters, but one grew up in her hometown with her
mother, the other lived with her father in army barracks from the age of two to
thirteen. Two of the women have their own businesses, one is a manager, one is
a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and two are students. To protect their
anonymity, I changed their names for the purpose of this report.
3


1
This is a play on Deng Xiaopings developmental strategy of building Socialism with
Chinese characteristics
2
This was incidental and not planned. However, it does give them a common
denominator.
3
Women interviewed:
Yujian, 25. Han Chinese. Born in Xinjiang, currently teaching Chinese in Thailand as
2
This was incidental and not planned. However, it does give them a common
denominator.
3
Women interviewed:
Yujian, 25. Han Chinese. Born in Xinjiang, currently teaching Chinese in Thailand as
part of her post-graduate studies in linguistics at Yunnan Normal University
Meihua, 29. Han Chinese. Born in Shangxi, owns two cafs, one in Lijiang and one in
Kunming
Zhijia, 24. Han Chinese. Born in Shangxi, Meihuas sister, manages her caf in
Kunming
Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 3

Three of the interviews were conducted in English, two in a mix of English and
Chinese and one in Chinese, although the English speaking younger sister of the
interviewee was present to clarify things when necessary. This was at the
insistence of the interviewee, and I considered it an impediment, as the
interviewee didnt speak as freely as the others, whose interviews had been
conducted in private. Interviews were informal and lasted from 40 minutes to
three hours. As I am a personal friend of all interviewees, I will also refer to
notes I made during previous conversations with the six women. All, but the
interview in Chinese were recorded; the last interviewee didnt want to speak on
tape, but wanted me to take notes as we talked.

This is not an objective report. Judy Long (1999) in Telling Women's Lives:
Subject/Narrator/Reader/Text says that complete objectivity in research is both
impossible and counterproductive; genuine research results from an empathetic
relationship between subject and narrator, a practice fitting the model of
exchange better than the model of scientific control" (69). As the relationship
between the subject and narrator becomes part of the life history, their
relationship needs to be included in the text rather than being viewed as "mere
methodological scaffolding to be discarded when the final result is achieved"
(71).

Although I asked all women roughly the same questions, the way I posed these
questions was influenced by the closeness of our relationships and by my
previous knowledge about these womens lives. The questions were asked from
my position as a Western woman with Western socialisation and its inheritant
assumptions. So, for example I knew that all of the women have had contact
with Westerners before and asked: Do you think that your contact with
Westerners has changed the way you see things, and if so, how? Although on
the surface an objective question, it did imply that contact with Westerners could
and would change the way Chinese women think and feel about their lives. I
have to give them credit that this was not lost on them and that when I invited
them to ask me questions in return, three of women asked me, if my contact with
Chinese people had changed my way of thinking.


Education

The biggest differences between the women I interviewed and their mothers
were found in the areas of education, relationships and self-esteem. Of the

Chunlei, 24. Naxi nationality. Born in Yunnan, undergraduate studies in tourism at
Yunnan Normal University
Niuniu, 26. Bai nationality. Born in Yunnan. Recently graduated as doctor of
Traditional Chinese Medicine, currently in Beijing, looking for employment
Niuniu, 30. Han Chinese. Born in Yunnan. Owns a Real Estate Agency
Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 4
young womens five mothers, only one had had three years of schooling. All the
others are illiterate. Whereas four of the young women have had at least two
years of university education and two completed junior middle school. Yujian
blames the Cultural Revolution on her mothers illiteracy, however, her mother
was already fourteen years old at the start of the Cultural Revolution. Others
name their grandparents poverty as a reason. During the course of the
interviews it became clear that in all cases, their grandparents hadnt deemed it
important for a girl to be educated and that this was the main motive behind them
not sending their daughters to school.

In their own quest for education, the six young women experienced reactions
from their families and mothers ranging from strong support to indifference to
active resistance. Notably it was the two women from ethnic minority groups
whose wish for an education was resisted and was and still, in one case, is a
source of conflict. Although in 1951 the Peoples Government had released its
ethnic equality policy (Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China in Australia
2003), the provision of educational resources to minority areas and awareness of
the importance of education are still lacking.

Chunlei, 24, who grew up in a small Naxi village in Yunnans north, recalls that
when she attended primary school her classroom had neither desks nor benches
and that every day she had to walk an hour and a half each way to attend junior
middle school. Although she is at university now, she has repeatedly failed
exams and contributes this to the poor education she received in her village
school, including the fact that she never was taught to speak proper Mandarin.
However, it is her parents attitude towards her receiving an education as a girl,
which she considers the main barrier to achieving her goals to complete a
university education. Her parents always opposed her education and never
contributed financially. Chunlei benefited from Chinas opening up policy, which
allowed her to have her school fees paid by a Japanese couple through a charity
organization. An American woman she met in Lijiang is financing her studies at
university. However, her education is still an ongoing source of conflict with her
parents, which hasnt been resolved. Chunlei deals with it by trying to prove that
they, too, will benefit from it. During school holidays she teaches English to the
village children, whose parents in turn give her family food and cigarettes as
payment. Her education also gives her and her family increased social standing
in the village. Yet, her parents are still angry with her as they would prefer her to
stay home and work in their fields.

Niuniu, 26, is Bai nationality. Her three older brothers were sent to school, but
her parents didnt consider it important for her and her younger sister to receive
an education. Till she was ten years old, she had to herd the familys animals. It
was only on her daily insistence that her parents finally agreed for her to go to
school, but under the proviso that shed return to her herding duties after one
year. Niuniu was best in her class and her teacher pressured the family into
letting her continue to study. Niuniu realised that she would have to remain top
Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 5
of the class in order to have her familys consent and did so for the remainder of
her education. Her oldest brother, who graduated in engineering, financed her
five years study of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a career choice that was
approved of by the family, as her father, although not having any formal
education in that area, acts as the village doctor.

The Communist Partys call for equality for women seemed to have passed by
minority villages. Neither the mothers nor initially the daughters were considered
worthy of an education. Yujian, 25, who is Han Chinese and whose mother is an
active member of the Communist Party always received strong support to further
her education and received Party scholarships throughout her years of study.
When she told me, that she is a member of the Communist Party as well, and I
turned to Chunlei, who was present during that conversation, and asked her
wether she, too, is a member, Yujiangs immediate response was of course she
is not, its the Communist Party, not the nationalities (as in minority nationalities)
Party! In other words, the Communist Party with all the benefits a membership
entails, is in Yujiangs spontaneous opinion for Han Chinese only.

In 1995, the Central Government organized and carried out the first project of
compulsory education in the poverty regions (Zhou 2004, 71). Niuniu and
Chunlei were then seventeen and thirteen years old and didnt benefit from it.
However the younger girls in their villages will no longer have to fight their
parents in order to receive at least primary school education, as it is now
compulsory. But the annual school fee of 160 Yuan still poses a strong
impediment with many rural families earning hardly enough to survive.
4



Relationships

Western popular press about social changes for young women in China focuses
nearly exclusively on the changing attitudes to sex amongst Chinese youth. So,
for example, a March 2004 article in US Today proclaims: Move over, Mao,
todays Chinese revolution is sexual (Lynch 2004). Shanghai Baby, a sexually
explicit account of a young Shanghai womans love affairs, was, according to
Farrer (pending) the most widely discussed Chinese novel of the late 1990s.
5


Although I did ask the six young women I interviewed questions about their views
on sexuality, I did so in the context of their attitudes towards relationships and
what conflicts may arise with their families and mothers as a result of possible
different viewpoints about relationships.

4
I am currently paying the school fees for a Yi nationalities girl, whose familys income
last year was 240 Yuan (approximately AU $43). This is hardly enough for the family to
get by, let alone send their daughter to school. I have been told that this is not an isolated
case.
5
Shanghai Baby is banned by the Chinese Government as pornographic.
Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 6

The marriages of Yujians, Niunius and Chunleis parents were arranged.
Niunius parents met each other for the first time on their wedding day. Chunleis
parents had seen each other before, but had never talked. Only Yujian describes
her parents marriage as happy, although she adds that sometimes they dont
speak with each other for months. However, as Yujians mother is illiterate, she
was very pleased to marry a schoolteacher and increase her social standing,
even though her husband only had primary school education himself.

Niunius father, as the son of a landlord, had been subjected to public criticism
sessions and Niunius oldest brother remembers seeing his father being beaten
and publicly humiliated. Niunius mother was devastated when she was forced to
marry him. But as she came from the poorest family in the area, she didnt have
any other marriage prospects. Niuniu cried during the interview when she
recalled the severe domestic violence her mother was subjected to. Today her
parents live separate at a different sons house each, and have stopped talking to
each other.

Although a marriage law was amongst the first laws introduced by the
Communist Party, it was only the revised marriage law of 1980, which allowed
divorce on grounds of incompatibility. New amendments made to the marriage
law in 2001 for the first time considers domestic violence as grounds for divorce
and permits victims to claim damages (Chen 2001).

Domestic violence was also a daily feature in Chunleis home. As Chunlei
expresses it: My father fought my mother, and then my mother fought me.
Chunlei was tortured by her mother and subjected to regular beatings by her
father. Chunlei, now 24, never had a boyfriend. This is painful for her, as she
wishes to be loved, but at the same time is very afraid that she will be used by
a man. As a Christian, she considers sex before marriage completely
unacceptable. Chunlei never had any sex education and still only has a vague
idea about what sex involves. If she would find a nice man to marry, and her
parents would object to the relationship, she would still go ahead and marry him
against her parents wishes. Being a Christian
6
she doesnt approve of divorce.
Chunlei has considered that she might remain single and as she has met a
number of single Western women, sees that as a viable option.

In 1998, 60% of marriages in China were still arranged by parents or other third
parties (Wan 1998). The marriage law amendments of 2001 ban this practice
(Chen 2001). The mothers of my interviewees all made it clear to their daughters
that they support their daughters own choice of partners within limits though.


6
Chunlei was converted to Christianity a year ago by the American woman who finances
her university education
Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 7
Niuniu has a Polish boyfriend. He is her first sexual partner. Although her
boyfriend has repeatedly expressed the wish to meet her family, the family
refuses, because they believe that if she marries a Polish man and goes to
Poland with him, she could be subjected to abuse without having any help. After
her family refused her to introduce her boyfriend to them last Spring Festival, she
spent this all-important family holiday travelling with him instead. Niuniu and her
boyfriend are planning to go to Poland together in a year or two, after Niuniu has
had a chance to gain some more experience practicing Traditional Chinese
Medicine, and Niuniu hopes that once her family will see that she has a happy
life in Poland they will change their attitude towards him. Niunius boyfriend
doesnt want to marry, and after a lot of soul-searching Niuniu decided that she
will eventually still travel with him to Poland without being married.

Meihua, 29 and Linggang, 30, are the only ones of the six women interviewed
who fit the stereotype of the Chinese sexual revolution portrayed by Lynch
(2004). Meihua, who grew up with her father in army barracks, was raped after
she returned to her mothers hometown at age thirteen. At sixteen, just before
she moved to Beijing, she had her first voluntary sexual contact. After that she
had multiple sexual partners and had three abortions between the ages of 18 and
19. When she was 21, she met her current boyfriend and they have been
together for eight years now. As her boyfriend doesnt want to have a child, she
is using a diaphragm for contraception. However, she has decided that if he still
refuses to have a child by the time she is 31, she will go out and fall pregnant by
somebody else, even if this would mean the end of their relationship and her
having to bring up the child by herself. She believes that this would bring great
shame to her parents, but says: The most important thing is that I am happy.

Linggangs first sexual experience was with a married man. She believes that it
is fine for women to be involved with married men, as most Chinese people
marry for money, not for love. She has had multiple sexual partners, mostly
Western men, because Western men know what a woman wants. Chinese men
dont care. Meihua, who is a close friend of Linggang, told me that their Chinese
male friends consider Linggang to be a bad woman and that this is the reason
she cant find a boyfriend. At thirty, Linggang is considered to be an old maid.
She dreams of marrying a rich man, but at the other hand plans her life as a
single woman. The fact that she isnt married is a source of ongoing conflict with
her mother, who remarried after Linggangs father died when Linggang was
seven. Linggang has bought her own flat now to escape these daily pressures
and live her life the way she wants.

Although two of the women I interviewed wouldnt chose to have sex before
marriage, the fact that they all are free to consider how they want to live their
lives, what type of relationships to have and that two of them even see single life
as a viable option, demonstrates how far removed their realities are from the lack
of choice their mothers experienced. They believe that their education, getting
Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 8
out of the village and meeting other people and the social changes since the late
70s are the main contributing factors to this.


The Four Selfs

In 1983 the All China Womens Association announced the Four Selfs slogan,
calling for Chinese women to develop self-respect, self-love, self-possession
and self-improvement. This slogan was then modified in 1989 to self-respect,
self-support, self-confidence and self-strengthening (Arend 2000). In the light of
Chinas history of subsuming the individual to the collective, this call for women
to focus on their self was quite a radical step. Wu Qing, member of the Haidian
District Peoples Congress and the Municipal Peoples Congress for Beijing
considers the socialisation of women to be inferior still as one of the main
obstacles to women seeking political power (Crook, Liu & Steams 1999, 56-7).

This socialisation to be inferior certainly was experienced by the mothers of my
friends, and by most of my friends also. Yujians grandmother, who was deaf,
was driven out of her husbands home after she gave birth to Yujians mother in
1951. She was never seen again. Meihuas grandmother killed herself when
Meihuas mother gave birth to Meihua in 1975, and Meihuas mother then, too,
was forced to leave her husbands family compound and return to her parents
place. She blamed her misfortune on her daughter and in turn mistreated her so
badly, that her husband, who was in the army, interfered and took his two-year
old daughter with him to the army barracks, where she lived for eleven years,
only seeing her mother occasionally. Chunlei was severely abused by both her
parents, whereas her younger brother was still being carried around on his
mothers back when he was 15 years old. Chunleis father still tells her on a
regular basis how ugly and useless she is. Niunius parents would have never
sent her to school, if she would not have been so strong-willed and continued to
insist, whereas it was never a question that her three brothers would receive an
education.

The exception is Yujians mother who as a member of the Communist Party
always liked Maos saying that women hold up half the sky and acted
accordingly, being politically active in her work unit. As a member of the All
China Womens Association, she took the four selfs slogan seriously and from
an early age told her daughter that after getting a good education - the most
important thing for a woman is to love and respect herself.

My other friends, who were not as fortunate as Yujian, have nevertheless
developed a fairly healthy self-esteem and this causes conflict in their families.
All of them are incredibly strong young women. Meihua ran away from home
when she was sixteen and went to Beijing. In Beijing she made friends with a
young woman from Prague. This was a deciding event in her life, because my
friend told me that I can do anything I want. She taught me to respect myself. I
Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 9
decided to never live in my village again and went to Lijiang instead to open a
caf.

When Linggan was 26, she fell in love with an English man. He made me
believe in myself. He made me believe that I am beautiful and clever and
strong. They were only together for four months before he returned to England.
When he left, I went to Lijiang for work. My mother didnt want me to go and
was very angry. But I knew I had to live my own life. We didnt speak for a year.
How did they make contact again? I called her. She is a businesswoman. I am
a businesswoman. I wanted to talk to her. Today Linggan owns a Real Estate
Agency and just bought her own flat. Is her mother proud of her? No. Because
I am not married. But I am thirty, I do what I want.

Linggans father died when she was seven, and her mother remarried three
years later and they moved to Kunming. Although she grew up in the city, she
feels she is different from her friends. How to say, they move in a circle. I go
out of the circle. I am not like them.

This was a sentiment also expressed by the others. After she graduated as a
doctor of Chinese Medicine in June this year, Niunius family expected her to
return to her hometown and set up a practice there. Especially Niunius oldest
brother, who had financed her five years at medical college puts strong pressure
on her to return. But Niuniu says: Women in my hometown spend their time
playing cards or mah-jong. They are not interested in the world. I cant live like
this. My soul would die. Just before travelling to Beijing earlier this month to
look for work, Niuniu went home to her family to explain her decision to not return
to her hometown and discuss their concerns.

Zhijia, whose sister Meihua helped her to go to Beijing and paid her two years of
study at university, also says: I am not like them (the other young women in her
village). They talk about their baby and simple things. It is boring. Her sister
Meihua expresses it stronger: They are alive, but inside they are dead. I want
to live inside.

I asked them what they think makes them different from the other girls in their
villages. Meihua: Because of my friend from Prague, and all the travellers I
meet in my caf. I talk to many people and learn about the world. Zhijian
believes that their parents were more liberal than other parents, as with her
fathers employment in the army their parents were themselves exposed to
influences from outside their village. Linggan feels she is different, because she
has a strong mother. After my father died, my mother had to work very hard.
She is a good business woman, very clever.

Min Dongchao argues that Chinas open door policy after 1979 made it possible
for ideas from Western feminism (and other Western schools of thought) to enter
and that indeed they did (1999, 78). Although all the women interviewed
Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 10
confirmed that contact with Western thought did impact on their lives by making
them realise that they had choices, when asked who their idols were, most
named other Chinese women, including their mothers. Even Meihua, whose
relationship with her mother has always been fraught, spontaneously named her
mother as her idol: She is a good woman, creative
7
and very strong. Shes just
not a good mother. Its not her fault. She never had an education. But you
know, I look in the mirror, and my mother looks back at me.


Community

The word "liberation", which in the West is inherently linked to liberty, meaning
freedom, in China refers to the collective class revolution, which requires the
relinquishing of individual freedom. (Li 1999, 264) In 2003, the Ministry of
Education conducted a survey among 10,000 senior middle school students on
how to deal with conflicts of interest between the collective and individual. A third
of the respondents (29.8%) stated that the individual interest must be
unconditionally subject to the collective interest and more than half of the
respondents (57%) believe that it is important to take the collective interest as
the center and meanwhile look after the individual interest (Shen 2004,127).
This confirms that the collective interest is still recognized as of importance by a
majority of young people in China.

The consideration of the collective interest was also the most striking feature in
my interviews with the six young women. All of them struggle with finding the
balance between their own individuality and the interest of their families,
communities and country and are looking for ways to do what I want without
neglecting their obligations to the community.

Yujian whose education has been financed by the Communist Party through
scholarships, is expected to become a teacher. She speaks excellent English
and has been playing with the thought of becoming an interpreter instead. A few
months ago she was offered a job as interpreter in a private company, with four
times the starting salary she can expect as teacher when she has completed her
degree. She turned down the offer, as she would feel shed be letting my
country down. Instead she is looking for other ways to be able to fulfil some of
her dreams and still repay the moral debt she feels she owes the Communist
Party.

Chunleis concern lies with her village and she is constantly thinking about how
she can help improve the lives of her fellow villagers, and especially the children.
At the same time she is adamant that she herself would never want to return to
live in the village. She wants to live in Beijing and maybe later go overseas. She
currently is planning with fellow villagers on how to open up her village to eco-

7
Meihuas mother supplements their income by designing and sewing clothes.
Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 11
tourism, which would greatly improve the living standards of the entire village and
in turn enable the children to receive better education and expose them to
outside influences.
8


Even Linggan, whose conversations usually revolve around how she can make
enough money to become rich, is involved in community development work. She
is part of a group of mainly Guangdong and Hong Kong people, which raises
money to build schools in poor villages and for poor mountain communities to
reforest their depleted environment and grow crops and life stock for cash
income.

When I asked Meihua, who is planning to open a third caf in Beijing, whether
she wanted to live overseas, she answered: No! Id like to travel overseas, but
not to live. I love China. I mean, I am Chinese, my stomach is Chinese, my
thinking is Chinese. I want China to become strong and Chinese people to have
a good life. If China is doing well, I will be doing well.


Conclusion

For more than fifty years now, China has promoted the equality of women.
However, especially women in isolated rural areas who grew up in the early
years of the New China were treated far from equal to men. Li Xiaojiang
believes that the legislation was too advanced for the political awareness of the
populace of its age (1994, 109). Although the women no longer had bound feet,
they were still bound by traditions and the old beliefs of the inferiority of women.
Wan describes this as how the invisible in the minds of people is being
transferred into the visible in society" (1998, 462).

The invisible in the minds of people told the generation of the mothers of my
friends that they are not deserving of education, the free choice of a life partner
and a life without violence. Some of them internalised this and in turn tried to
hand these beliefs down to their daughters. However, these daughters grew up
in an era of economic reform, improved laws, and outside influences. They also
benefited from the work of women who did not internalise the old messages and
promote self-strength as a need and pursuit in life.

Traditionally the family has been the most important unit of Chinese society, and
this is still true. Family ties continue to play a major role in the lives of both
parents and children and it is within the frame work of the strength of these ties
that young Chinese women are negotiating their place in Chinas changing
society. Conflicts that arise between the families expectations and the

8
I recently visited Chunleis village, which is situated on the Yangtze River and has no
roads leading to it. I was the second foreigner to ever come to this village; a few years
ago a French hiker passed through, which is still a topic of conversation.
Phoenix Van Dyke 2004 12
daughters needs for self-expression are being dealt with in a variety of ways,
from just doing what I want, to ongoing dialogue, to trying to convince the family,
that they too will benefit from their daughters advancement. In all this, the new
generation of women has not forgotten their wider community and cares deeply
for the communitys welfare. Community and individual interests, too, are
weighed up against each other and negotiated.

Todays young women in China are still far from enjoying equality, however their
position relative to their mothers has vastly improved. The creativity with which
they carve out their place in society and their strong sense of direction is exciting
to witness. The combination of strong self-interest brought on by changing
policies and an openness to new ways of thinking, combined with the willingness
to negotiate conflicting family and community interests, celebrates the young
women I interviewed.




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