This Blog Mentioned on ChinaLawBlog.com?

I'm not quite sure how he found me but Dan at ChinaLawBlog.com wrote a post a few days ago about my observation regarding the toll booth workers here in Chengdu. While I only intended to poke fun at the situation Dan has provoked an interesting conversation in the comments section on his blog (although I think he may be confusing "sexism" with whatever the -ism is called regarding physical appearance.) Dan's opinion is that China does suffer from the problem of "sexism", yet to a lesser degree than some, even more highly developed nations such as Japan and Korea. Within his personal field of law he has noticed that "pretty women in China are favored more in employment than in the United States, but that women who do their jobs well (no matter what their looks) are taken seriously."

In a diversion from the jocular nature of my original post on the matter, I'd like to respond to this in a slightly more serious manner. As a young single adult male here in Chengdu I have made some casual observations about the phenomenon and it does seem like physical attractiveness plays a large factor, especially in the service sector. After living here for over a year I have noticed that particularly in the white collar sectors there is a real emphasis on looks. I also have a friend working for a big bank in Shanghai who has let me know (on more than on occasion, usually in the form of boasting) how attractive his co-workers are. In contrast, I see that women are much more willing to work in fields such as transportation, farming, construction, waste management, and other professions in which you would be hard pressed to find female laborers in Western countries. Dan says:

"If I had to rate China on a sexism scale among the countries I know best, it actually does fairly well. It is not as good as the United States, but it is considerably better than Korea and better than Japan as well."

However, I feel the complete dearth of female employees in blue-collar professions in the U.S. balances out the equation, especially when you factor in how many people are actually working in those sectors here in China.