In China, women who are single past the age of twenty-seven are stigmatized as sheng nu, or “leftover women.”31 They face severe pressure from their families to marry, stemming from the widespread belief that regardless of education and professional achievement, a woman is “absolutely nothing until she is married.”32 One thirty-six-year-old economics professor was rejected by fifteen men because she had an advanced degree; her father then forbade her younger sister from going to graduate school. More than 80,000 women have joined Lean In Circles in China,33 and they are working together to
...more
