刘 丽 (四川师范大学成都学院 四川成都 611745)
It’s very interesting that many women postgraduates around me always sign that: “It’s so difficult to find a fit boyfriend,let alone a soul mate.Other girls’boyfriends are always better.And good boys have already had their girls.The leftovers are those who are the least suitable.” In China, two problems arise in recent years: the difficulty of finding proper jobs for undergraduates and the difficulty of finding good matches for postgraduates, especially women postgraduates.Both problems attract people’s attention.What make the situation of postgraduates totally from that of the undergraduates are that they have to keep an eye open for their marriage while focusing on their academic research, because they are of an age to marry.Once there is a well-known saying about the life of women postgraduates: they are worried about their papers and M.A thesis in the daytime, while worried about marriage at night.This is the true portrayal of their life.According to research, this phenomenon exits everywhere among women postgraduates.(Women postgraduates here refer to those girls who are born at the end of 1970s to the beginning of 1980s).
Unfolded the cover of the phenomenon, there are several reasons to explain that, objectively and subjectively.Mainly, the reasons can be summarized as rising of their self-consciousness, and they have many pre-conditions.And still there are other reasons.Firstly, it can be considered as the product of weakening and rising women’s self-consciousness.Women postgraduates are deeply influenced by feminism movements and theories, such as first-wave feminism,second-wave feminism and postmodern feminism.Firstwave feminism refers to the women’s movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.First-wave feminists generally accepted a fundamental, natural difference between men and women, but argued for their political equality.Second-wave feminism refers to the women’s movement from the 1960s on.During this period,many concepts have been employed to express feminists’understanding of inequality, such as patriarchy, sex/gender system (proposed by Gayle Rubin).When feminism set feet to the postmodern period, comes psychoanalytic feminism, which argues that gender identity is constructed through language.What’s more, postmodern feminism has queried the sex/gender distinction.At the same time, as the new women in China, they are educated and are freer than ever before, economically and physically.Classical feminist books, such as The Second Sex, Sexual Politics, etc, can be found among their daily readings booklists.Because of the education received and their overall conditions, their selfconsciousness is stronger that ever before.
Secondly, they are not satisfactory with their current boyfriends.Their thoughts can be descried like this: grass in that hill is always greener than that of this hill.Or their boyfriends are undergraduates,so they want to find boys like themselves, with master degree or doctor degree.Besides, they are more selfcentered and attach more importance to their own feeling and own identities.Still because of economical independence, soul mates favored mostly.Economy tie is not of importance any longer.Common language is the basis of choosing a match.
Thirdly, the limitation of surroundings is another factor.In China, the gender ratio is skewed and men outnumber women for decades.But in some colleges or universities, the situation is totally different.The number of women students is far more that of men students.Due to this reason, women students’ social circus is limited.The range and scope of their choices are comparatively smaller.
Thirdly, some men do not want to marry girls who are more educated than them, so they prefer to marry girls down.It seems that men are always marry down while women marry up.In recent years, a message is so popular that it can be found both on the Internet and in cell phone message.It’s said that men with doctor degree marry women with master degree, while men with master degree marry college students.As for undergraduates, they marry girls like themselves or middle school students.Although many people just take it as a joke and laugh and forget it as soon as they get this message, it tells truth in some kind of degree indeed.To be frank,it’s the continuation of traditional patriarchy.Men still want to be the leader in family life, as powerful as before.
According to a research by a postgraduate committee in Shanghai, the main reason of difficulty of choosing fit half for the postgraduate students or people with master degree lies in that they have set several preconditions for their mate, such as education received,height, and family background.Besides, the limitation of the surrounding is another reason.Among all the postgraduates involved in this research, 94.9% of them are single, while 5.1 are married, whose mates are their undergraduate classmates or postgraduate class fellows, and a few are from blind date.The research also shows that among the postgraduates involved, 55.7%of them are still single.As for the reason listed by the committee, most of them favor reason of “too many prerequisites limited” as the most important reason.They think both love and marriage are of the same importance.And 50% students choose love first and marriage second.Many take pessimistic attitude towards love and marriage and they think love and marriage are not reliable instead of their personal career.Due to the education they received, they pay little attention to the appearance(looks) instead of their moral character and common language, as well as sense of responsibility.Looks only list the fifth, right behind of temper.At the same time, healthy condition is a very important factor in the condition to choose a spouse.
In China the gender ratio is skewed and men outnumber women for decades.This result, however, didn’t change women postgraduates’ situation, but worsen it.The number of women postgraduates only takes 33% of the total number of postgraduates.Still the problem is worsening.It’s not caused by any reason partially,but the product of all factors combined.It needs to be considered carefully.
[1] Dates from http://news.memail.net/060108/120,4,2333305,00.shtml 中国消费网 转载 新闻晨报 戴越庭
[2] http://202.121.15.143:81/document/2003-8/gj030815.htm 中国研究生教育实力在世界的位置 浙江大学教育学院教育学系副教授、博士生 杨明
[3] Elaine Baldwin, Brian Longhurst, Greg Smith, Scott McCraken&Miles Ogborn .Introducing Cultural Studied, Peking University Press,Beijing, 2005.
[4] Zhugang, Twentieth Century Western Critical Theories, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, Shanghai, 2001.