Challenging the Status Quo of Gender Equality - How Young Chinese Are Demanding Change

Review of Women’s Month | Common Women?

It’s more than one day – March 8th, International Women’s Day.??It’s a day every day in every month and every year. Common has planned a series of activities to celebrate women’s independence and freedom this March. This is a review of Common Women Month, a start but not an end.?

Podcast: Voice from high school students

Common Research invited high school students from Xducation, a high school club to allow younger generation to discuss gender issues, inspire each other, and advance themselves on the understanding of humanity. The Club President Breeze and the vice chairman Nichole talked with us about “Fumeiyi(服美役)” and “negative liberty”.?

“Fumeiyi” refers to the phenomenon that people cater to the public aesthetics and social norms for appearance and sacrifice their own interests. Make-up, losing weight, aesthetic medicine, and plastic surgery are typical cases.?

Nichole discusses that “yi” means the services that people must obey and be disciplined by society. People, especially women who are more vulnerable to “Fumeiyi”, feel that they have the responsibility to get prettier.?

Starting from the discussion of the origin of “Fumeiyi”,??we discuss whether “negative liberty” under the Chinese context should be deemed freedom. Breeze thinks that hostile beauty somehow becomes the mask that women use to cover the fact that they don’t have the freedom of choice.?

“We hope that Xducation and other female powers can freely leave beautiful traces in this chaotic world! ” - Nichole & Breeze

For more information, please subscribe to our Apple Podcast channel: Common People/日常人类

Say No to Pink Tax and reflect on consumerism?

Common Research posted a research article on the pink tax to examine the consumption traps created by contemporary commercial society for women and eliminate the cloak of consumerism for International Women's Day.?

Pink Tax refers to the difference in pricing of products with similar functions for consumers of different genders - female consumers often pay higher prices to buy products with the same functions as men or get products with lower quality and fewer functions at the same price.?

When the product’s material, quality, and design are the same, but the appearance is changed to a color that women may like, such as pink (although this is a cliché stereotype), the product’s price will increase. "Female customization" without much increase in cost can immediately boost profits. In short, the pink tax explicitly points to the fact that women need to pay extra unreasonable and unnecessary expenses when consuming.

Most importantly, pink tax is not just an economic phenomenon. The nature of the pink tax is a gender tax, which is gender discrimination under consumerism.?

First, merchants did not actively or fully disclose the pricing differences between men and women to consumers. As female consumers, unless they conduct comprehensive research before consumption, it is difficult to detect these unreasonable prices.?

Secondly, it is difficult to say that the consumption that women pay the extra price is their voluntary will. The logic of this pricing is the source of business discrimination against women.?

Common sorted out the latest pink tax cases in the Chinese market, hoping to help female consumers face such gender-biased and discriminatory profit methods and be able to detect something wrong.

(In)visible women, let the invisible become visible

Common Research launched an offline panel activity titled “Invisible Women: let the invisible become visible”. This time Common focused on the strong bonding of sisterhood and tried to build a community for women to network. The theme was inspired by the book of the same name: Invisible women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, written by Caroline Criado Perez.?

The panel started with the book guide led by Fudan University, Zhihe Club, one of the most famous gender clubs among universities in China, then extended to the discussion section.

The panel discussion was genuinely informative and encouraging, with a diverse audience from different industries sharing their experiences and insights on the invisible moments in their lives, ranging from the workplace, family, daily life, and so on. They shed light on how women are often overlooked, undervalued, and sidelined in everyday life, despite their talents and qualifications.?

Furthermore, we brainstormed brilliant ideas on what can we do.?

#Takeaction??#Girlshelpgirls??#Beyourself??#Acceptcompliments #Determineyourworth #Empoweryourself??#Daretoquestion??#Staytruetoyourself

See you around, all common women!

In the end, a shout-out to our amazing colleague Guanying P. , who went above and beyond to bring those ideas to life. Her enthusiasm, creativity, and dedication were truly inspiring for all the Common team!