Chinese Education Rejectiing Feminism?

Wanted in China: More Male Teachers, to Make Boys Men

FUZHOU, China — The history class began with a lesson on being manly.

Lin Wei, 27, one of a handful of male sixth-grade teachers at a primary school here, has made a habit of telling stories about warlords who threw witches into rivers and soldiers who outsmarted Japanese troops. “Men have special duties,” he said. “They have to be brave, protect women and take responsibility for wrongdoing.”

Worried that a shortage of male teachers has produced a generation of timid, self-centered and effeminate boys, Chinese educators are working to reinforce traditional gender roles and values in the classroom.

In Zhengzhou, a city on the Yellow River, schools have asked boys to sign pledges to act like “real men.” In Shanghai, principals are trying boys-only classes with courses like martial arts, computer repair and physics. In Hangzhou, in eastern China, educators have started a summer camp called West Point Boys, complete with taekwondo classes and the motto, “We bring out the men in boys.”

Education officials across China are aggressively recruiting male teachers, as the Chinese news media warns of a need to “salvage masculinity in schools.” The call for more male-oriented education has prompted a broader debate about gender equality and social identity at a time when the country’s leaders are seeking to make the labor market more meritocratic.

During my short-lived substitute teaching career I walked into my third grade room-for-the day. Three girls were already there, and one shouted, "Finally! A man teacher!" I suspect that girls also would respond well to male teachers. But under feminista diktat, all men are rapists and must not be around children (being pedophiles by extension). I could teach third graders; they are old enough to want to learn, yet young enough not to have their brains bent totally to the Left and corrupted beyond hope. By seventh grade, the opposite is true, and the students run the school and dominate the teachers. By High School, chaos reigns with no possibility of teacher control. Which is why I quit.