I wasn’t at the meeting where the topic for this week–are women equal–was chosen. So I wasn’t sure whether the issue was, whether women are treated equally to men, whether women are equal to men, or maybe it was a comparative issue people wanted to raise, how Chinese stacked up against American women. So after laying out the possibilities, I began by noting that in both the Greek and Christian traditions, there is a mythical story that essentially blames women for the ills of existence [Pandora, Eve]. Was there a similar tale in Chinese mythological thought? How were women viewed, mythologically speaking? The only story that was brought up was that of a woman who filled the hole in the sky with her body, thus becoming the savior of mankind. Quite a difference, though I realize that might not be the whole story. And certainly, as several people brought up, there were many cases in Chinese history of women being portrayed as the villain.

Someone mentioned a saying, I think I wrote it down correctly, that bringing up a girl was like watering someone else’s plants, the thought being that the woman ultimately bears fruit for someone else’s family. This was obviously a point about the relative merit of men and women in society. But it was pointed out that today girls are more desired as children because girls are seen as being more likely to take care of the parent. Does this mean women are more ethical? No one was biting at this. Someone wanted to argue that men like to fight more, and that women are more impulsive, but did not want to go to the next step to claim that men are more rational than women.

But this did bring up the issue that was to dominate the evening, are men and women different by nature. One camp wanted to argue that, yes, men and women were different by nature. The most obvious example is physical differences, women have a womb and can give birth, men are naturally stronger. The other side wanted to claim that any current inequalities are the result of social molding. Men and women are equal but society treats them differently, expects different things of them and that explains their differences. Even the most obvious physical differences, it was argued, could be explained that way, since in some societies women did the physical labor instead of or besides men. So women are as capable in all areas.

Much of the evening was spent in back and forth on this particular issue. One interesting exchange came on the issue of whether women are good political leaders. I mentioned that some who think that men and women are different argue that the capacity women have to negotiate and to get along rather than fight makes them good political leaders. How did each side feel about that. The camp who believed in essentially the same nature theory held their ground and said, no there was nothing distinct about women to make them particularly good leaders and that men and women were equally good leaders, while the difference theorists, if I may called them that, thought men did make better leaders but that some women might be as capable as men in this area. She went on that in general that even though men might be better at some things the occasional exceptional woman should be allowed to pursue this as well.

But wouldn’t this belief that women were not as good at something be an impediment to the woman pursuing the occupation. Someone gave a personal story about how she was told that she should be a teacher and should not pursue the sciences which she loved. Isn’t the attitude that women are not equal to men in the sciences responsible for tragedies like this. The proponent of differences said, if she had the will, she would have pursued it.

Overall it was one of the more contentious of evenings with two clearly divided lines in a debate and a single focused topic.