Like mother, like daughter
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-09-15 06:24

Great pressure

In today's modern society where women work equally alongside men, undertake similar responsibilities and pursue similar career paths, studies have shown that women still have undue pressure to bear, such as performing the bulk of "unpaid jobs," including housework and caring for family and relatives as well as volunteer work.

A survey by the Women's Commission showed that, in some cases, women still spend three times as much time as men doing housework, while around one-third of married men still did no housework at all.

"Women can hire a domestic helper to help them with their daily chores or child-rearing but some women do not feel comfortable hiring an outsider to do such work," Chu says. "So they turn to their relatives, particularly their mother or their sister, to help them."

This support network also strengthens the mother-daughter bond, Chu says.

At the same time, the mothers of these women grew up in the 1960s and 1970s when more women began to break free of their traditional roles, getting an education and entering the workforce.

"They did not want to follow in their parents' footsteps and be housebound," Chu says. "And they strived for independence from their own mothers who had come to Hong Kong, having been brought up in stricter times and who wanted their daughters to follow the older ways."

Chu adds that this generation of women was exposed more to Western culture and the value of independence so they developed more progressive thinking than their own mothers.

It was interesting to hear of an undergraduate student who had learnt how to apply makeup from her mother, Chu says, rather than from her friends. The girl's mother had even gone as far as buying fashionable clothes for her.

"It is good to see mothers making more of an effort to find out what their daughters are interested in," she says. "It builds closer ties between them."

Soo Ki and Lam, Helen and Po Yee, would no doubt agree.

(China Daily 09/15/2005 page13)

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