Suicide Cultural Blight For Rural Chinese Women

Chinese women have been saddled with dark problems from the past that have not been easily discarded, the legacy of centuries of confinement to spheres of little influence and few opportunities. Even urban women, who now enjoy greater education and job possibilities and more freedom of movement than their rural counterparts, have not completely shaken off their historical status as second-class citizens.

A more ominous monthly feature in the magazine “Rural Women Knowing All” is titled “Why They Commit Suicide” and deals with a phenomenon with roots deep in China’s history, when downtrodden rural women often viewed killing themselves as the only way to escape loneliness, shame, misery or oppression.

Suicide - usually by swallowing insecticide - remains a major problem among rural women. The column recounts a new case every month and suggests how others might avoid the same fate.