"Women's town" to put men in their place

[JazzRemington]

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese tourism authorities are seeking investment to build a novel concept attraction -- the world's first "women's town," where men get punished for disobedience, an official said Thursday.

The 2.3-square-km Longshuihu village in the Shuangqiao district of Chongqing municipality, also known as "women's town," was based on the local traditional concept of "women rule and men obey," a tourism official told Reuters.

"Traditional women dominate and men have to be obedient in the areas of Sichuan province and Chongqing, and now we are using it as an idea to attract tourists and boost tourism," the official, surname Li, said by telephone.

The tourism bureau planned to invest between 200 million yuan ($26 million) and 300 million yuan in infrastructure, roads and buildings, Li said.

"We welcome investors from overseas and nationwide to invest in our project," he added.

The motto of the new town would be "women never make mistakes, and men can never refuse women's requests," Chinese media have reported.

When tour groups enter the town, female tourists would play the dominant role when shopping or choosing a place to stay, and a disobedient man would be punished by "kneeling on an uneven board" or washing dishes in restaurant, media reports said.

The project, begun in the end of 2005, was expected to take three to five years to finish.

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...26?feedType=RSS (http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSKUA64707120070426?feedType=RSS)

[Black Dagger]

"We welcome investors from overseas and nationwide to invest in our project,"

Cultural theme-parks have a shady history and this place will be no different; oh and this is absurd ;)

[TC]

I assume the reason why this is in discrimination is that its an example of ridiculous local governmental and social sexism towards men and not being interpreted as some sort of feminist project, as its so clearly not.


In fact i think even the fact that this can be reported with such a comedic tone and the fact that they believe its going to attract presumably foreign tourists demonstrates the degree to which casual personal level sexism towards men is tolerated (obviously economic/structural gender discrimination does not affect men in that way).

[Tower of Bebel]

This project sucks. Discrimination becomes a theme park. Instead of solving the problem they just turn things obside down to have a good laugh?

[Whitten]

Whats next, the south US gonna open up a theme park where black tourists are forced into work on the plantations?

[LSD]

In fact i think even the fact that this can be reported with such a comedic tone and the fact that they believe its going to attract presumably foreign tourists demonstrates the degree to which casual personal level sexism towards men is tolerated

actually I think it rather speaks to the reverse.

The fact that the entire notion of a -- let's call it matriarchal -- society is treated so comedically, I think, indicates that the notion of female domination is still considered entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Where is the notion of male domination even mail absolute domination is still so present in everyone's mind that were the gender roles in this story to have been reversed, no one would be laughing.

Of course I agree with you entirely that this does nothing for the betterment of women generally or for the cause of feminism. Although I suppose it does serve a useful purpose in once again demonstrating the encroachment of capitalism into the laughably still labeled People's Republic of China... :rolleyes:

[rouchambeau]

"This is what would happen if women ran the world" is the message I get out of this.

[Iroquois Xavier]

Hey i bet the BDSM crowd would love this! :P

[Janus]

Seems a pretty strange and unnecessary way to attract tourists especially in light of the fact that Chongqing already has a large number of sites and attractions.