Province exemplifies new attitude toward education for girls

Shifting attitudes

The progress in the southwestern village is a sample of a broader shift in Chinese people's attitudes toward empowering women.

As the decadeslong one-child policy barred families with a daughter from having a younger son, more parents accepted girls as their heirs and invested more in their future. That trend has manifested in education figures.

According to a 2019 white paper released by the State Council, China's Cabinet, women account for more than 52 percent of undergraduate and vocational college students, despite the fact that China has about 30 million more male citizens. That is 28.4 percentage points higher than in 1978, when China embraced the market economy, and 32.7 percentage points higher than in 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded. Women also comprise 48.4 percent of China's graduate students.

The public's attitude toward gender-based prejudices is also decreasing, making it morally unappealing for parents to terminate girls' education.

The anti-sexism sentiment was manifested in a public outcry last year after netizens spotted 47 male beneficiaries among 100 students who received funding from the Spring Bud Project, a government-endorsed charity program that helps slash dropout rates among rural girls.

The China Children and Teenagers' Fund, which launched the project in 1989, later issued a statement explaining that they included boys in their assistance list as their teachers do not want the poor boys to drop out because of exclusive treatment. But netizens were not convinced, and the scrutiny quickly expanded to the charity's other programs.

A netizen commented: "Our money is for poor girls to buy new schoolbags and clothes, not for boys to buy cameras and fulfill their so-called dreams."

Che Weiwei contributed to this story.