It's good that I'm not married!
Chineasy
Today’s compound character features the building block form of woman (女) and mouth (口). Now you would think that this character means “talking woman”. That’s a logical conclusion, right? I’m sorry to say that if you guessed it, you’d be wrong! 如 actually means “to obey”. Today, the use of 如 has also been extended to mean "if”, “as”, “like”, “such as”, and “suppose".
Just like in traditional Western culture, Asian women weren’t supposed to speak unless spoken to. Instead, they were expected to obey men’s requests and taught that obedience was an important female virtue. Respecting your parents and partner is one thing, but it’s not ok to ignore anyone’s opinions or ideas entirely!
While women are still definitely not treated with full equality in Asia yet (or in Western countries for that matter!), a lot of progress has been achieved in the last 100 years. When the People’s Republic of China was established around 1950, the government began stro…ngly advocating for gender equality. Since then, it’s been a bit of up and down for women in China; women are now a large part of the workforce and increasingly influential in politics, but others are forced into prostitution or killed as infants because a male child is preferred. If you want to read all about it, Wikipedia has a lot of information on this specific topic: http://bit.ly/15XdpvV.
女 (Woman) + 口 (Mouth) = 如 (To Obey), (If), (As), (Like), (Such As), (Suppose)
Pinyin: 如 rú (ru2)
Style: Traditional and Simplified
Rarity: CommonЕще
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