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By Mengfeng Xu / Winter 2020

Recently, with the coronavirus sweeping China, many medical workers are racing against time to save more lives. A video on the Internet caught my eye. The video is a comparison of the morning and afternoon versions of the same interview on CCTV. The TV reporters interviewed a nurse who is working in the ICU of Wuhan Hospital. In the morning version, she said that she alone had to care for three patients and that she didn't have time to care for herself even though she was on her period. In the afternoon version, however, the station cut out the nurse's statement that she was on her period. I'm puzzled by what the TV station did. Menstruation is a normal physiology phenomenon; why can’t they say it on TV? Why not let us talk about periods in public?

There are also some news during the outbreak that I think they are ridiculous. In an effort to minimize the spread of the coronavirus, most schools in China have postponed the semester begin date and replaced classes with live online lectures. Teachers instruct their lecture on some live-broadcasting platform. Since the implementation of this teaching method, there have been many reports on social media platforms in China that teachers have been forced to shut down their live broadcasts because they were judged to have involved sensitive words. I saw the news on the Internet that the biology teacher in junior high school was forced to quit the direct broadcasting room, and also saw the news that the account of a obstetrics and gynecology teacher in university was banned by the live broadcasting platform.

Many people on the Internet reposted the messages and took them as a joke. But after joke, we should see the problem behind these things: sex education is backward in China. Society tries to obscure all the transmission of sexual knowledge, and sex education is hard to come by, especially among young teenagers. Teachers don't teach sex education at school that they pass a few sentences even in biology class, and children always get ambiguous answers when they ask parents. This has led to many teenagers being hurt by their ignorance. A news says that 14-year-old girl in Xi’ an City gave birth to a baby in the bathroom of her dormitory after suffering severe abdominal pain. To my shock, her teachers and classmates were unaware of her physical abnormality, and even this girl knew nothing about her own pregnancy. Moreover, some teenagers do not have the correct physiological knowledge, and they do not know how to protect themselves in sexual behavior. It increased the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The lack of sex education has seriously affected the healthy physical and mental development of teenagers. I think it is urgent to solve this problem.

Before we discuss the sex education problem, we need to start by exploring why sex is so often avoided in China. As an old Chinese saying goes: “See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.” This sentence means that if something is against the ritual, then we must prevent to touch it. In Chinese tradition, sex is against the rules of ritual. “With the emergence of human's consciousness of sexual restriction, various kinds of sexual taboos and rules have been gradually formed in various nations around the world, and the development of taboos and deification has finally evolved into religion” (Wang 2011). In Wang’s article, he points that when it was discovered that promiscuous offspring had a high risk of dying, people abandoned the cult of reproduction and restricted sex. Religion shaped the rules for people, and these rules were deeply rooted in their thoughts and actions. In ancient China, the most widespread was the Confucian School. What the Confucian school advocated were the “ benevolence” and the “ ritual”. They think that sex is vulgar and obscene, it is evil for people to pursue the noble “ritual”. Due to such thinking, the ancient Chinese people's views on sex have always been contemptuous. People pursue purity and regard sexual ignorance as purity. They think it is ethical to stay away from sex. Such thinking still imprisons the Chinese people.

Now we know some Chinese ideas, we can think about why these ideas could be widely spread and deeply influenced the Chinese generation after generation. History is always written by the winners. For a long time, ancient China practiced the feudal autocratic monarchy system, and the monarch had the supreme power. Monarchs and nobles enjoyed rich resources and political power, which is the social hierarchy (Twohig, slide 21). In order to show the noble status and power, people attached great importance to the purity of blood of the gens. Ancient China was a patrilineal society, and people wanted to keep the purity of the patrilineal family, so it is necessary to have strong constraints on the women in the family (Twohig, slide 29). “The Han people practiced monogamous marriage, but the feudal class generally took concubines. In the view of kinship, the paternal line is the center” (Wang 1996). The author supports the patriarchy in ancient China. In the old Chinese concept, there is no "sexually education", only "chastity education". Women were always regarded as the accessories of their fathers, brothers or husbands. Men could have many wives, but for women, ignorance of the sex was their best personality.

Generally, women were not taught about marriage and sex until the day before they get married, and many women didn't even meet their husbands before they get married. They couldn’t enjoy freedom. At the same time, men were not forbidden to have sex before marriage, so they could watch pornography or even visit prostitutes to satisfy their desires. There was a gender hierarchy that women got an unfair social arrangement, and their rights were excluded by the socially constructed order (Twohig, slide 18). Wang also points out in the article that in the traditional concept, the important goal that people pursue was the loyalty and filial piety of the son to his father. The extension of this patriarchal system was the loyalty and filial piety of the people to the supreme ruler. This is the ruling class of oppression of the people, this is also the oppression of men of women. A long hegemony hung over the people, and the ideology of the ruling class is to hide sex and oppress women. This has led to the society dominant ideology (Twohig, slide 16) that view sex as a taboo. Under this gender hierarchy in the society, people came to think it was normal to look down upon women, and it was common to think the bodies of women are nasty and evil.

Now we see the deep problem of China's backward sex education, we can discuss the obstacles prevent us to solve the problem. The society dominant ideology still impacts people to treat sex as a secret, and stubborn ideological problems have seriously hindered the development of sex education. The older generation's disdain for sex makes it difficult for them to value the next generation's sex education. Most parents feel that they have grown up safe and healthy even if they did not get enough sex education when they were teenagers. The lack of sex education has not delayed their own development. However, the fact is that due to the overall improvement of nutrition and medical level, there is a worldwide phenomenon of early puberty in adolescent sexual and physiological development. According to statistics, the average age of teenage girls in Shenzhen City is 13.13 years old, about two years earlier than 50 years ago (Liu et al., 2005). Early puberty makes children's need for sex education more urgent. Children today need more sex education than ever before. In addition, the lack of teacher resources is also a difficulty that must be overcome to improve the level of sex education. It is difficult to popularize sex education if students are not professionally taught by professional teachers. However, under the examination-oriented education system, people always care about children's academic performance and neglect their physical and mental health. Learning about sex is bound to take up students' time studying other subjects, which makes the development of sex education difficult. Also, many people still consider it immoral to talk about sex in public. Some people think that teaching sex goes against the idea that teaching is a respectable and noble profession. Talking about sex can be labeled as dishonest and bad. Under the pressure of public opinion, some people are reluctant to teach sex, while others are afraid to say they need sex education.

Moreover, in the rapidly developing information age, we get information easily and quickly. However, it also means it is harder to distinguish between good and bad sources of information.This is especially true for teenagers who do not yet have a perfect sense of right and wrong. Because sexual ignorance is regarded as the purity of the mind, people always hide their sexual needs. Society often espouses a dominant reality that sex is a topic to hide away, but this reality is contradicted with that some people choose to watch and spread bad pornography on the Internet in order to satisfy their desires. Teenagers may be misled by pornography and have false expectations about bodies of women. This makes it harder for young teenagers who don't have formal and ethical access to sex education to figure out what is the right idea about sex. It is easy for early sexual maturity to make a teenager lacking self-control to do wrong things and face unbearable consequences, and it takes away a lot of their ability to protect others and themselves.

In the context of patrilineal society, the main thing of these obstacles is that many people lack the awareness of sexual liberation. They do not realize that due to the influence of the dominant ideology in the society, they subconsciously discriminate against women, and women are deprived of the right to freedom and equality. Like King was seeking for a moral center beyond socialism and capitalism (King 2010), we also can find a moral center of our obstacles. I think it is gender equality. We can use an ethical compass to identify our obstacles (Twohig, slide 58).

For individual, sometimes our unintentional behavior can lead a girl to believe that she was attacked because she made a mistake. When I was a junior high school student, I was ridiculed by some boys in our class because my physical development was earlier than other students. They thought I was different from them.When everyone around you thinks you're different, you feel like it's your fault. If no one leads the correct way, the person who has been hurt will hide themselves deeper and become more self-conscious. Others cannot realize that their behaviors are wrong because people who think they are not at fault are not aware of the negative effects of such behavior and thinking patterns.

For institutions, like school and most of media organizations, never bring up the topic of sexual knowledge. In the case of the TV coverage I mentioned earlier, they hide all the information about sex, like the "absolute equality" between male and female medical staff. Women should be as "equal" as men and should not be "specialized" because of the menstruation. However, it is not a true equality. “We not just recognize and sympathize with the plight of others but also join them as equals, reaching across differences without erasing them (Taylor & Hunt-Hendrix 2019)”. True equality is mutual respect, and we need to have a normal mindset about the different gender characteristics that different genders have.

For national, the traditional Chinese thinking is conservative, and the government has been cracking down on all possible ways to access sexual knowledge. In some ways, however, the deeper the cover-up, the greater the desire to explore. This increases the likelihood that teenagers will learn the wrong things through bad channels.

The obstacles separate us with different gender, and it makes women suffer more than they should. To overcome them, we can look to history for inspiration. The second world war had profoundly affected different aspects of economic and social life in many countries and had led to changes in the social and family status of women. After a long period of oppression, women realized that they should use their own power to achieve freedom and equality. The second wave feminism began in the 1960s. Feminists aimed to fight for the freedom and rights of women (Twohig, slide 20). In order to gain body autonomy (family planning) and escape the exploitation of patriarchal society, they worked to promote sexual liberation and tried to bring sex education into schools. Also, they were protesting the miss America beauty pageant because it was based on the male aesthetic (Morgan 1968). Women need to learn from their courage and perseverance.

Follow the ethical compass, women should unite as a group to overcome the obstacles. For individual, first we should realize that as girls, we are all beautiful, no matter how tall, fat or thin we are. When we are hurt, we should not begin by questioning ourselves. We need to calmly face the sexual problems and avoid losing our rights for fear of being laughed at. We can take the initiative to ask our mother or teacher for advice on physiological knowledge we don't understand. If their answers are not clear, we can also ask our older female friends. For collective, we should help each other. We can set up a counseling platform for sex education or interest groups in schools.When someone has a problem, we can solve it together. We can all come together and appeal to the government or the department of education about the establishment of sex education courses.

We all have a biological sex, and all of our love ones also have a biological sex. This is not just about a few people but for all people, includes all of men and women. Sex education is not only about sex physiology, but also about gender equality, interpersonal relationship and intimate relationship. It is a part of essential education. To get involved, we can staring by change our mind that free our thoughts from the dominant ideology of society. Learn to respect women, respect their bodies, respect their rights. Like King said: “But our moral and spiritual "lag" must be redeemed (King 2010). In the ethical way, seeking for gender equity make all people as a solidarity. We should support correct sex education to make our society better developed.

Works Cited

Taylor Astra and Hunt-Hendrix Leah. “One for all: Only Solidarity Can Save the Planet, 26 Aug. 2019, https://newrepublic.com/article/154623/green-new-deal-solidarity-solution-climate-change-global-warming.

King Jr., Martin Luther. “The World House.” Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Beacon, 2010. pp. 177-202.

Liu Qi, Wang Wen and ZhangYingchun. “On the objective necessity and realistic urgency of sex education in China”. The Chinese Journal of Human Sexuality, Sept. 2005 Vol.14 No.9:25-28

Morgan Robin, “No More Miss America,” Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writing from the Women’s Liberation Movement.

Twohig, Niall. "Day 3b" WCWP 110, 14 Jan. 2020, University of California San Diego. Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

Twohig, Niall. "Days 5" WCWP 110, 21 Jan. 2020, University of California San Diego. Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

Twohig, Niall. "Day 9 - A House Divided" WCWP 110, 4 Feb. 2020, University of California San Diego. Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

Twohig, Niall. "Day 13 - Beyond liberal Consensus Part 2" WCWP 110, 18 Feb. 2020, University of California San Diego. Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

Wang, Li. “An overview of ancient Chinese sexual culture”. Xing Xue, Sep. 1996 Vol.5 No.3: 25-27.

Wang Zhiqiang. “An analysis of the historical causes of the current situation of sex education in China”. Theory Research 08 (2011): 176-177.