I watched a TV play based on a great woman，Zhang Guimei, and it tells the story of her overcoming difficulties to create a free female high school in Yunnan Province. Her deeds are very famous in China now, and I think this play can also reflect the problems and background of women’s education.

1. The TV series specially describes four students, all of whom are representative and prototype.

• Gu Yu: She got good grades but dropped out of school in grade 9. Her mother died, leaving a younger brother and an alcoholic father at home. Her dad forced her to get married and said she could be sold for 30 thousand yuan, so she compromised. Zhang Guimei went to the house and take her away and said that she would take care of her, and she would give her father 30 thousand yuan later.
• Cai Guizhi: Her family is too poor and father works on the construction site. He hope his daughter can go to Zhang’s school, but she didn’t want to go. She wanted to take care of her mother. The root cause is that her father will abuse her mother, so she want to protect her mother at home. Finally, Zhang Guimei came forward to reprimand her father before she agreed to go to school.
• Ning Hua: Her parents died, she and her grandfather were left at home, and she was the only child in the family. She was raised as a boy since childhood and did farm work to support home. She went to school because she didn’t pay tuition and the school would give her living expenses that she can take care of her grandfather with money.
• Liu Xiying: Her parents are divorced and both work outside. She doesn’t study well and is bent on getting married. But she went to school because her fiance’s home was washed away by the flood. Although she felt that she had no talent for studying and wanted to marry a good man in the future, she went to college and got a job finally.

2. The basic views of mountain people are:

• It doesn’t make any difference whether a girl can study or not. They should either get married early or go out to work early to support her family.
• Girls have to get married in the end anyway, and it’s not worth spending money on them to let them study.
• Girls themselves feel that it is normal for them to sacrifice for their families and brothers/parents. They think that the outside of the mountain is still mountain. In general, their cognition is limited. No one attaches importance to girls, they have no money, no future, no one tells them that there is another way to go besides getting married, and they don’t believe that they can change their destiny.

3. I think our social and language environment has been very short of feminist narrative. In this patriarchal social ideology, we have become accustomed to male narrative. However, it is very good to see that there are more and more such female narratives, which show the plight and helpless reality of women, as well as their courage, resistance and growth. Last year’s film “Young Woman and the Sea” also has the same effect, all of which are trying to break social prejudice in an environment where women lack opportunities, and all of which tear a hole for feminism in male narration. Nowadays, more and more women are aware of inequality and that they should strive for equal rights and the right to speak.

the TV / Chengchen Ma / Education Futures: KIPP & Futures Project (2024-25) by is licensed under a