spiderplanet

Last week, NPR journalist Juan Williams was rightly fired for saying the following:

...when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

Amusingly enough, Williams' statement about "Muslim Garb" prompted the site Pictures of Muslims Wearing Things. Among the pictures, there are three Starfleet uniforms, one Minnesota Viking, and a woman wearing a cat on her head.

All arguments made against a woman wearing a cat on her head are invalid.

Of course, I know not to get my hopes up about NPR's journalistic integrity. My most common beef with their stories is that they often present exactly two sides of an issue; the conservative view, and the crackpot view. If it's a 'human interest' story, sometimes it's only the crackpot view.

And then there's this gem of an article

First, some background.

The "one-child-per-family" rule has existed since 1978 and initially applied to first-born children in 1979. Every Chinese born citizen under thirty-one was born under this rule. Because many families in the previous generation wanted their only child to be a boy, their is now a gender imbalance. Since one-child-per-family, there are now is close to 120 boys for each 100 girls born. Birth control is not as enforceable in rural areas. As a consequence, the gender balance of birth rates is more balanced in rural areas.
Access to birth control is one of the strongest indicators of opportunity for economic and social independence or advancement for women.
China is a big place. The homogenization of Chinese culture in the media is about as accurate as saying that rural Alabama, rural Nevada, and urban Illinois all have the same cultural and social expectations. There's a difference between rural and urban Chinese culture and that difference has existed for several decades. For a few broad and overly generalized differences - The standard of living is higher in the cities, the quality of medicine is better in the cities, the education is better in the cities.
China has been undergoing a boom of economic development over the last thirty years. The better paying jobs are in the cities. Young adults and their families are moving from rural areas to the cities.

The NPR article isn't bogged down with any of those facts, of course. It's an article of interviews. The only young woman interviewed in the article has parents who keep telling her "No girls will be wanted after 30, so you have to grab the guy that you have right now and get married," and she's worried that they might be right.

She also says some things that look a lot like "Woe is me. All the guys I date are jerk-faces. I'll probably never find love." I'm sure I said that myself when I was 24. I don't mean to take comfort in her pain, but there's quite a bit of consolation in knowing that it's pretty much the same in China.

The other article interviewees are mostly parents and grandparents who are pressuring their daughters and granddaughters to hurry up and get married.

And then, under the heading "A Matter of Misguided Standards" there's the playwright Li Bonan. Li Bonan is the author of Shengnulang or The Leftover Woman, a play about a woman who reaches 30 still single. "Shengnulang" is a derogatory term for an unmarried woman, similar to "Old Maid." Here's the bit about Li Bonan.

The play's director, Li Bonan, says the problem is modern women are confusing material wealth with happiness.

"Of all the unmarried women in Chinese cities now, very few are unmarried because they can't find love or a suitable partner," Li says. "They're unmarried because of their pursuit of money and status and a house and a car. And they cannot find a man who satisfies these material desires."

The director says Chinese women need to get back to relishing the simpler things in life. And he says that as China continues to evolve, people's expectations will be able to settle down, and so will all the unmarried women.

Here's what I think is probably really happening. Because of an improving economy and consistent access to birth control, this is one of the first generations of Chinese women who get to make some choices about their own future. Some men who want to retain their traditional status are feeling betrayed and are blaming women who won't marry until they feel ready.

Guess which perspective NPR chose to cover the story from.

Alternate titles for the NPR article:

Uppity women better hurry up and get married, or they'll be sorry!

Domineering, nitpicky parents and grandparents agree: You should settle.

And, my personal favorite:

None of China's 647,345,123 women are willing to fuck misogynist playwright Li Bonan, and now he's bitter.

I betcha that Rob Gifford doesn't get fired.