Blowing Water | Single, childless and maligned: when will discrimination against unmarried women end?
Luisa Tam says society needs to stop treating single women like pariahs, especially since the future of the world economy increasingly lies in their hands
What is it about single, childless women in Hong Kong and China at large that hands them the misfortune of being the butt of jokes? Bridget Jones may have been the fictional darling of unwed women in her heyday, but the phenomenon she embodied is still taboo in many circles.
Swedish furniture giant Ikea recently ran a television commercial depicting a fierce woman telling her daughter over dinner: “Don’t call me mum any more if you cannot bring a boyfriend home.”
Soon after it was aired, Ikea had to apologise and retract the ad after the firm was inundated by a flood of criticism from angry internet users who said it was prejudiced against single women.
The scene played out in the ad is a common scenario in Hong Kong. Single women face enormous pressure to get married and have children in their late 20s. As families get smaller, many 20-something singletons are often the only child, so parents rely on them not only financially but also to carry on the family line (sometimes regardless of sexual orientation).
According to government statistics from 2014, the number of single women in Hong Kong had reached 1.01 million, around 40,000 more than the 970,000 men who were still bachelors.