“No one makes their own way, not really. Least of all a woman. You’ll need to marry well,” says wealthy Aunt March in the latest film adaptation of Little Women to a niece who aspires to greater self-fulfillment.
The movie is director Greta Gerwig’s — born in 1983 — take on women growing up in the US about the time of the Civil War, from a 21st-century perspective.
The story follows four sisters in the days when women did not publish anything under their own name, guided by a mother doing her best, unsure of whether they would be able to succeed as an author or a painter or whether they will eventually be forced to abandon their dreams and instead find a rich husband.
Will marriage be the end of their personal development?
The dialogue between a publisher and an aspiring novelist is shown as a tug-of-war between the contemporary social expectations and feminist ideology.
As the election campaigns entered their final phase over the past month, we have seen male chauvinist elitism rear its ugly head, with attacks on unmarried women as well as those who are married and pregnant, something that we had hoped we had moved beyond in this egalitarian society.
When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, born in 1980, gave birth while in office, she took just six months of maternity leave before going back to work, and even took her baby to a UN General Assembly meeting.
She also won worldwide acclaim for her handling of a terrorist attack in her country.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, raised by her mother and her mother’s female partner after her parents’ divorce, was — until last week — the youngest world leader, and a new mother herself.
Life throws up all kinds of challenges and choices, and understanding how to forge our own way through is what makes us progressive global citizens in the 21st century.
We need to be able to build a world in which we can all fulfill our aspirations for who we want to be. Even the women among us.
Agnes Lee is a writer.
Translated by Paul Cooper
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations