My own first encounter with the concept of “Leftover Women” came from my Chinese textbook freshman year at NYU Shanghai. We were studying the Chinese character “剩” , or “leftover”, and our teacher asked us to guess what “剩女” or “Leftover women” meant. Although our class was able to directly translate the two character’s into its English equivalent, we were completely stumped by it’s meaning. What did it mean to be a “leftover woman?” Despite our best efforts—we thought perhaps it was a term to describe missing women or those who eat dinner leftovers—our teacher finally explained to us that “Leftover women” refers to the portion of the Chinese female population over the age of roughly 25 years old who are still unmarried. While the pressure faced by women to marry young is felt across the globe, Chinese women in particular feel an acute sense of responsibility to marry before the age of thirty. The term “leftover women” was coined in 2007 after China’s Women’s Federation used the term to describe unmarried women over the age of 27, and since then, it’s become a common part of the Chinese vocabulary. In a powerful video released by Chinese skincare company SK-II, “Leftover” women reveal their insecurities about being over 25 and unmarried, with one woman explaining, “People think that in Chinese society, an unmarried woman is incomplete.” In order to facilitate their children’s search of partners, many Chinese parents will participate in weekly trips to a marriage market, where hundreds of other parents of young adults will share photos and information about their children, often including height, weight, education, and salary. Shanghai’s own marriage market, set up in People’s Park, runs on weekends for five hours a day. In an interview with the Huffington Post, local Shanghainese matchmaker “Teacher Gu” explains that the reason he helps parents find matches for their children is that “ nowadays things are too good—people are living too well”, and so the sense of urgency to marry young is dwindling. 29-year old female Huang Yuanyuan, during an interview with the BBC, offered another possibility for the emergence of a “leftover population.” She explains, “There is an opinion that A-quality guys will find B-quality women, B-quality guys will find C-quality women, and C-quality men will find D-quality women. The people left are A-quality women and D-quality men.” Currently, approximately one-in-five women between the ages of 25 and 29 are unmarried. So, do we need to worry about China’s leftover women? It depends on what we mean by that question. China’s leftover women do need help, but it doesn’t come in the form of marriage markets or matchmaking services. What unmarried women need and deserve is respect of and autonomy over their own decisions. The notion that a woman’s value increases or decreases with respect to how close she is to marriage is outdated and harmful. It perpetuates stigmatization, excuses sexism, and furthers the narrative that daughters are transactional commodities, able to be traded by parents based off income figures and height to weight ratios. Katrina Xu, a Chinese sophomore at NYU Shanghai, shares her opinion on China’s “Leftover women”, saying, and “I think as people get higher education, they don’t think girls need to get married to live a decent life. I do know that during Spring Festival, some students returning to their hometowns find that their families may still ask them about finding a boyfriend or girlfriend. Personally, I don’t think it’s bad to get married past 27. I don’t think boys in our school, at least, really care either. “She continues, “I haven’t talked to my parents about the situation, but if I don’t get married by 30 I expect that my parents will be a little worried. My grandma will definitely be worried much earlier. I feel like if I were the parent, I just wouldn’t care.” This article was written by Elizabeth LeClaire. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: SK-II