A battle for Chinese women’s self-image, in particular over the size of their mammaries, is brewing.
China’s economy may be in the throes of an acute boom-to-bust cycle, but even in its midst, societal concerns — in big cities and small towns — appear to revolve around a far more vital statistic: the size of women’s breasts.
A battle for Chinese women’s self-image, in particular over the size of their mammaries, is brewing: on one side is the iconic big-breasted Barbie doll, in whose honour a 38,000-sq ft ‘superstore’ was opened in Shanghai earlier this week; on the other is a quirky Chinese artist who is taking his message against ‘breast enhancement’ surgeries, increasingly being favoured by Chinese women, to the countryside.
Fighting declining sales of Barbie dolls in the recession-hit US, its makers Mattel are looking to China’s emerging consumer class for sales growth, and the March 6 launch of a superstore in Shanghai fits in with this strategy. The success of that strategy will depend on whether young Chinese girls will take to the excessively Caucasian-looking, exceedingly anorexic and exaggeratedly big-busted Barbie.
Far away from China’s big cities, meanwhile, an idiosyncratic Chinese artist is taking his battle over Chinese women’s self-image to the countryside, with exhibits that feature, among other things, a pair of giant, rosy breasts on a cart drawn by a red-painted ox with gold-coloured horns.
Shu Yong, a 35-year-old modern artist who has courted controversy with his exhibits, says he is drawing attention to the “bosom culture” that’s sweeping Chinese women, who hope to enhance their career and marriage prospects.
“In today’s patriarchal society,” says Shu, “the size of a woman’s breasts is seen to change her life: people go to extraordinary lengths to enhance their breasts.” From commercials that advertise breast enlargement procedures, to statistics about the number of such surgeries, it’s evident, he says, that “we seemingly feel the uncommon importance of breasts.”
In fact, he argues, breasts have long gone from being mere body parts and now play a role in ‘body politics’. With his exhibits, he claims, he hopes to enhance people’s appreciation for “natural curves” rather than surgically enhanced ones.
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