Philosophers from different historical periods and cultures remarkably shared the same thought. Whether Socrates or Lao-Tze, it’s not hard to find their admonition against narrow-minded thinking. The more common saying we hear today is “the sky’s the limit,” metaphorically meaning the sky has no limit. Especially when NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on the surface of Mars, and when China’s Tianwen-1 robotic probe also entered Martian orbit with plan for May landing, I think linguists may need to create a word of grandeur to capture the Martian-style-relativity-bounded sky. The sky is truly endless, and yet if you set a limit on its size and distance, it becomes tangible and attainable like future human expeditions to Mars.
If we are running our life like a satellite orbiting the 12-month calendar, we have just departed from Black History Month and entered Women’s History Month, which is celebrated during March in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. (It’s noteworthy to mention the days in the calendar of February 2021 are the same as those in March of 2021 except that the latter has three extra days in the calendar.) Let us hope this month is not a “Groundhog Month,” but instead, is one with progress and prosperity as we welcome the spring equinox.
Speaking of Women’s History Month, the International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8 is no stranger to Chinese people. Indirectly, IWD becomes a holiday for female teachers and mothers in China. They receive flowers or presents from their loved ones and employers on that day. As the wave of feminism grows, IWD brings opportunities for merchants to frame the holiday as an appreciation day to thank the significant women of a man’s life. That prompts some male chauvinists to call for a holiday for men on an allegedly equal footing. In a mercenary society, what else cannot be monetarized? I doubt few consumers understand why we celebrate IWD.
Narrow-minded people believe it is purely a holiday for women and about women. But if you believe the sky’s the limit, you might buy the logic. Without men, women cannot be identified independently as women physiologically. Imagine that there is only one gender on the planet. No comparison, no distinction. In the same vein, without human gestation in a woman’s womb for 40 weeks, men cannot be born and recognized as boys for their primary sexual characteristics. Women’s History Month is a month-long learning and re-learning opportunity about women and about what makes humanity as a whole by honoring not only men in a narrow-minded binary sense, but also non-men genders in the lens of diversity and inclusion.
I remember when I was a pupil in Guangzhou, I had a half-day off on IWD. Strictly speaking, I wasn’t qualified to observe the holiday as I was only a girl in my playful years. But because many elementary (and secondary) school teachers were women, and my school just gave everyone a half-day off, including the students. Kids love holidays. That was how IWD was understood by me in my childhood. Until I grew older, I came across Mao Zedong’s dictum “Women hold up half the sky.” IWD suddenly became a bit revolutionary to me because of Mao’s authoritative acknowledgment of Chinese women. As described in my memoir, I felt privileged to work with a room of women in publication. After I became a full-grown woman and listened to too many harrowing real life stories about women’s survival did I understand the women issues are full of complexity and relatively speaking, boundaryless. Geographically, women suffer similar discrimination and violence from men. Socially, women share similar duties to rear children and bear stigma surrounding woman’s moral responsibilities. Imagine if the Bible was written by a selected group of women, what the world would have become today?
I don’t completely agree with Mao’s dictum, partly because in various industries, the gender ratio varies; partly because I believe women could hold up the same sky as men do if both genders are given equal opportunities. To achieve that will require active listening from all genders. If you are willing to listen, you might be able to hear the voices that have been silenced from silent spring to silent sky, you might be able to open your mind a bit because you might find silence is the presence of everything. In other words, if you only hear your own voice under an endless sky, you know your world is incomplete.
This is why social media tools can do good and bad to our interpersonal relationships. This is how authoritarian states run their propaganda machines on social media. This is what drives American people polarized and Britons in limbo in the post-Brexit era. Listen, you will hear Indian dancer Mallika Sarabhai’s advocacy for the struggling performing artists under covid lockdowns. Listen, you will see in the movie Land (2021) how a woman survived in the wilderness like a man with true grit to overcome grief and eventually reunite with the lost self. Listen, you will understand the urge to treat everyone fairly and equally is synonymous with breaking censorship in an authoritarian country. To date, China has banned BBC World News to continue airing inside China for alleged failure in providing truthful news reporting about China. A group of public service broadcasters expressed concern following the ban of BBC content on Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK. BBC has been a leading media source for reporting about China’s “re-education” camps for Uyghur, Hong Kong democratic movement, and even the recent investigation by the WHO team in China about the origins of COVID-19. None of these news headlines is pleasurable to Chinese censors’ ears and eyes. So, it’s back to the golden rule that it’s not a politician’s words but her action that exemplifies transparency and accountability. It takes two to tango. Women can be as feisty as men when they are perceived themselves marginalized, silenced and mistreated. For centuries, women have been censored by authoritative men. Between men, that inequality of status usually leads to fistfights or a war as a collective action. So in the end, we are back to the core problem—we haven’t done enough to listen to the minorities, the disadvantaged, and the marginalized. Only when we respect one another and are given equal opportunities will we find ourselves not being judged by our conscience, and to attain comfort in the balance of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
The competition of getting one’s voice to be heard has never been stronger in the digital age. Subsequently, the tolerance for other’s voices is significantly reduced. Women issues are not only about gender disparity. They also highlight the importance of listening to others and respect the women you admire and love, create opportunity for the women you cherish, and tolerate the women you may not share the same wavelength in order to free yourself from disputes and noises under an endless sky.
Believe it or not, if we are good listeners, we’d have enjoyed the quietest period with Planet Earth in decades during 2020 as the pandemic significantly reduced seismic noises. According to a group of scientists from 33 countries, up to 50% so-called ambient noise generated by human activities and factories humming was dropped after lockdowns came into force around the world. As a result, small earthquakes that otherwise would not be observed were detected in some places in order to improve human understanding of the seismic hazard. The complexity of women issues is like the seismic noises undetected in the fabric of our society. After discovery and giving credits to the role of women in a society, we will have a better understanding of how endless the sky is for any individual rather than living in a paranoid conceived by narrow-minded thinking.
Regardless of gender, race and nationality, it is never too late to ponder women issues in the spirit of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s spearheading for the basis of sex, in which she quipped, “I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” Regardless of gender, race and nationality, we’ll see the endless sky if we dare to end narrow-minded thinking and embrace diversity. Happy Women’s Day!
[I would like to be remembered as] someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability. And to help repair tears in her society, to make things a little better through the use of whatever ability she has.
–Ruth Bader Ginsburg