China and Taiwan have always had some serious issues. While much of Taiwan wants to be independent, officials in China want to reunify with the small Asian country. When Taiwan swore in their first female leader, Tsai Ing-wen, last week, China decided to ramp up their attacks against the president.
In particular, one Chinese official decided to insult the fact that Tsai is not married. “As a single female politician, she has no emotional encumbrances of love, no family restraint, no children to worry about,” wrote Wang Weixing, a member of China’s Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), according to CNN. “Her political tactics are often emotional, personalized, and extreme.”
In 2016, women need a husband and children to be unemotional and rational? Really?? Many Chinese residents or people around the world seemed to agree that Wang’s statement was pretty ridiculous and sexist—especially to be published by a mainstream and government-run media company like China’s Xinhua News Agency.
“This is very shocking. How did such dirty and obscene viewpoints get associated with Xinhua,” wrote Gao Lidong, chief editor of a small Chinese news website, on Weibo (China’s version of Twitter).
The Wall Street Journal reported that another Weibo user agreed with Lidong, writing, “Looks like Xinhua wants to become the public enemy of the millions of unmarried women in China.”
Once again, sexism hits! If a male president, we wouldn’t be having any of these claims! Taiwan president emotional cause she is single #PT
— Mariam Mecky (@MariamMecky) May 25, 2016
This isn’t the first time Tsai Ing-Wen has been questioned on her decision not to marry or have children. “In a traditional society, a woman who never marries would be regarded as less whole,” wrote Tsai in a Facebook post, according to The New York Times. “But in modern society, what marriage provides is also available outside of marriages, isn’t it?”
Park Geun-hye, president of South Korea, is also an unmarried woman. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is a widow and was the first elected female president of Argentina. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf divorced her husband and never remarried before becoming the president of Liberia. Women run the world, literally, with or without husbands all the time.
Although the article by Wang has since been taken off of the International Herald’s website, remnants of the essay remain on Weibo. In modern times, calling a woman “extreme” because she is not married is absolutely ridiculous and sexist. There are plenty of single, male rulers around the world. Women are no different—and people know that. If this is China’s way of convincing Taiwan to reunify, then reunification doesn’t seem to be in either country’s futures.