The Problems of Controlling Love

Last Week's Discussion on Leftover Chinese Women

I thought it was really interesting when we discussed the idea of the "leftover woman" in China referring to those who never marry and instead live independently in their working roles. I was surprised when I learned that in China they sometimes exaggerate the amount of women who are single, stating that up to 89.9% of women are not married. It makes sense that they could use such high percentages in order to almost make these women afraid to be in the category. I also thought it was interesting that "leftover women" were described as high-achieving because it seemed very odd to me that such a positive description of a person could still be given the negative connotation of someone who is leftover. Also, it made me upset to hear how this culture creates a notion of normal women being married and abnormal women not being good enough to find a husband.

This reminded me of the extra credit lecture titled "What is love?" in which we learned about women from the Philippines who travel to Japan just to meet and marry a man in order to have the security of a husband. The speaker argued that monetary love and erotic love can be connected. However, I felt that any love that is not true is not real love. Love should not be something with an advantage. It should be something we feel in order to be happy. So in the case of the Chinese women, marrying a man should not be about following an expectation of society. Marriage should be about real love and meeting someone who brings joy to our lives.

I was thinking about these concepts and realized that they are not as foreign as we may think. I believe that the pressure to be married or to experience long term love occurs in the US as well. Women who never marry seem to still be considered like something is wrong with them, and people seem to give reasons to explain why they never found someone to spend their life with. Even in film there is always the expectation for the couple to end up together at the end of the movie. Why can't more films show the happy ending as the women realizing she is more in love with her independence than being tied down to a partner? I hope that one day people can realize that love and desire is something very individualistic and can not fit inside a social construct or expectation because it is not something that can or should be controlled.