AWARE member Lee Yenyen (pictured below) ponders the damaging gender stereotypes found in the Chinese-language media here.

By Lee Yenyen

Watching an episode of Aunty Lucy left me feeling much infuriation.

For the sake of giving a review, I made myself watch three episodes. Not only did I waste three precious Sunday afternoons, I had to tolerate vulgar insults which killed many of my brain cells.

Such a distasteful programme released for the sake of attracting advertising dollars is a waste of time, a compromise on appeal and a lost opportunity to attract a more discerning audience. The high viewership, and a win at the Star Awards, have only proven an inclination towards tasteless entertainment. The show is full of Low discerning abilities, perceiving what is repulsive to be interesting, and yet it is lauded.

When women gain weight – whether it’s middle-age spread or pregnancy weight –  it is apparently never a good thing.  It’s a curse. If the weight is not gotten rid of, what we’ll see is an obese demon. Who’ll love you then? Who’d want you? Without diets, without makeovers, your fate is to be despised by men and made the subject of jokes. This is a tragedy! Without a man’s love and affection, it’s as though a woman has been thrown into the depths of hell – and she deserves it, for putting on weight and not losing it.

Even if you aren’t shunned by your husband, your appearance will bring looks of disdain from others. A man with a dumpy wife by his side invites comparisons to beauty and the beast, eliciting jokes aplenty.

And then…Aunty Lucy appears. With relentless nagging, she hauls a deluge of such females off to beauty centres for treatments, with no regard at all as to how much the treatments cost and whether the women are able to afford it. Money rolling out of your bank account is still better than your husband having an affair – that would be the real calamity!

After marriage, childbirth, middle age, old age…fear, self-loathing, lack of confidence and guilt all come along…how pitiful for Chinese women!