To Hell with Being a Housewife, I’m Off to See the World

Introduction:

Like A Rolling Stone is, in my opinion, the best film of the year and serves as another powerful portrayal of women’s struggles, following Barbie. While Barbie from last year took a more lighthearted and satirical approach, this year’s film faces the pain head-on with courage. Before this movie, I never truly believed that we would see an original Chinese film centered on the female perspective. But now, it has arrived.

In The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Engels said, “Monogamy did not appear in history as a reconciliation between men and women, still less as the highest form of such a reconciliation. On the contrary, it appears as the subjugation of one sex by the other, as the proclamation of a conflict between the sexes, unknown throughout the whole previous prehistoric period.”

In an old, unpublished manuscript from 1846 co-authored by Marx and Engels, there is this line: "The first division of labor is that between man and woman for the propagation of children." Now, I would like to add: the earliest class antagonism in history coincided with the rise of conflict between husband and wife under monogamy; and the earliest form of class oppression emerged alongside the oppression of women by men.

The formation of the marriage system is closely tied to gender inequality. The conflict between husband and wife reflects the imbalance of gender power under monogamy, which gradually evolved into the foundation of class struggle. Although modern marriage laws might drape the institution of marriage in the warm veil of love, the exploitation within remains unchanged.

In Like A Rolling Stone, Aunt Su Min (the protagonist Li Hong) has three critical people in her life, all of whom deeply affected her: her father, her husband, and her daughter.

Her father deprived her of the opportunity to study, ruthlessly clipping her wings when she needed education the most, thus preventing her from achieving a better future. This highlights the relationship some parents have with their children. Some parents are their children's haven, lifting them up to fly higher. But others feel that, because they gave birth to their children, their children have no right to live better than they did. Love and nurturing may be instinctual, but jealousy and selfishness are equally innate—this is the cruelty of the tiger. Aunt Su Min's mother demanded that she resign herself to her fate, just as she had, and not compete with her brother. She too was a victim of the patriarchy. Her underlying logic was, “I was hurt by gender bias; why should you escape the same treatment?” Some people can endure their own suffering, but when they see others spared from it, they are consumed by hatred and envy. This is the evil of the vengeful ghost.

Those oppressed by patriarchy are often eager to escape their family by entering marriage. In fact, they may realize that their husband is just as selfish, cold, and cruel as their parents, but the overwhelming desire to escape parental control blinds them, and they rush into another trap. As the saying goes, "those with scars attract the flies first." People who have been hurt are likely to choose partners who resemble their parents, thus perpetuating a cycle of harm. Aunt Su Min fell into another pitfall in life: marriage and childbirth.

Childbirth inflicts irreversible physical harm on women, while the exploitation of unpaid domestic labor and the burden of domestic violence in marriage can deprive women of financial independence and push them into depression. The structural oppression inherent in marriage transcends merely "choosing the right man." Marriage, in essence, is a system that oppresses women.

In the film, Aunt Su Min’s marriage is the most overt form of oppression: she loses her stable income, bears all the housework, looks after her grandchildren, and suffers long-term psychological abuse. Meanwhile, her daughter’s marriage represents a more subtle form of exploitation. Her daughter's husband may sweet-talk and seemingly support her career, but offers no real assistance. The modern workplace’s refusal to hire married women and the sacrifice of women’s careers for child-rearing represent another layer of structural oppression. This form of oppression is less visible but equally damaging.

In a moment of helplessness, the daughter sacrifices her mother, as if it were an inevitable choice. But why doesn’t she ask her father for help? The film shows that the father and daughter have a decent relationship; they share meals and drinks together. The daughter even asks her father to return her mother’s keys. If she can persuade her father to make concessions, why does she turn to her mother for help instead? Is it because she believes her father is unwilling or simply because human nature tends to bully the weak?

When the daughter was in high school, she once told her mother to divorce her father. As someone who has witnessed my parents' unhappy marriage, I have grown deeply fearful of both marriage and motherhood. But why does the daughter in the film still choose to marry? This brings us to the concept of "survivorship bias."

The “survivorship bias” here does not imply that the daughter successfully escaped. Rather, she mistakenly believes that she is one of the lucky few. In recent years, there has been no shortage of women who remain indifferent to feminism. Like the daughter in the film, they believe that their mothers' (i.e., feminist) suffering is a unique and distant phenomenon that they will never experience. They see themselves as the lucky exceptions who can enter marriage unscathed. Yet, unsurprisingly, they face the same struggles.

At the end of the film, there’s a poignant scene where the daughter is gutting a fish, repeating the very life her mother hated the most. In her younger years, she likely didn’t grasp the issue of structural oppression. She simply believed that her mother had chosen the wrong man. So, she chose a man who spoke sweetly. She insisted that child-rearing wasn't solely her responsibility, but such efforts are far from enough to dismantle structural oppression.

"Structural oppression" is a topic long overlooked. After so many years, someone has finally recognized it and confronted it. Women’s limited access to education, rushed marriages as an escape from parental patriarchy, unpaid domestic labor in marriage, and workplace discrimination against married women are all interconnected layers of structural oppression.

This review could easily bash the terrible fathers, husbands, and daughters for the sake of entertainment. However, I hope you will see the bigger picture of “structural oppression.” Just like the film, let’s confront the issue and expose the pain. Before this review, countless brave women fought for surname rights, equal inheritance, education, and fair pay. They not only had the determination to leave but also the courage to resist. Auntie Su Min’s story is deeply moving. She fought back and won her freedom.

And I hope all of you, dear readers, will grasp your freedom from the start. Don’t wait until you are 50 or 60.

Now, in this moment, you must win.

You must be free.

Edited by: Half Soymilk, P Jiang

Translated from Chinese, first posted on our Official Account: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/H-CAQzg_606kmcKT7ttU1A