数百年来，中国女性都被要求照料家庭、服侍丈夫。但是，这一切正在迅速改变，中国女性正变得前所未有的独立。25岁的魏小姐来自上海，像许多都市新女性一样，她并不急于为自己找一个丈夫。她说：“我追求完美，我可以等下去。”

For centuries, Chinese women were expected to raise families and cater to their husbands, but that attitude is fading fast.In a survey by the Asian Women's Forum and the Women's Studies Center at Peking University, 45.3 percent of women said they did not think they should have to give up a career for a family life.[Agencies]

Christine Yu is single, sophisticated and successful. A senior internal auditor with a large company, Yu spends her free time practicing English at a language club and dancing, often with a paid instructor.

She does not spend her free time trying to find the right man. “I’m very picky, I think,” Yu said.

At 29, Yu is part of a new generation of young urban Chinese women who say they have more choices than their mothers did when it comes to education, careers and, especially, marriage.

“If I don’t love him, how can I have kids with him?” she asks.

It may have been a while since you heard the words “women’s lib,” but the idea has arrived with a vengeance in China, where women are becoming empowered like never before.

For centuries, Chinese women were expected to raise families and cater to their husbands, but that attitude is fading fast.

In a 2004 survey by the Asian Women’s Forum and the Women’s Studies Center at Peking University, 45.3 percent of women said they did not think they should have to give up a career for a family life.

In a 2004 report, sociologists at China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission traced the new attitude to the one family-one child policies of the 1980s. The traditional Chinese preference for sons over daughters led to an epidemic of gender-related abortion, creating a significant imbalance among young adults today. In some parts of the country, men outnumber women by as much as 20 percent.

In families that did have daughters, the one-child policy meant most girls were raised as only children, lavished with esteem-boosting attention from parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents in China’s multi-generational households.

As a result, China now boasts a generation of educated career women in great demand by suitors. But that interest isn’t always reciprocated.

Nearly three-quarters of Chinese women want to be economically independent, a survey last year by the Institute of Marriage and Family found. This year, in the largest survey ever conducted of Chinese gender perceptions, the All-China Women’s Federation found that a similar percentage said media depictions of women as subservient to men were a major obstacle.

Sabrina Wei, 25, a self-described entrepreneur in Shanghai, is like many young Chinese women. She is in no hurry to settle down with a husband.

“I always strive for the best, and I can wait,” she said.

（Agencies)

Vocabulary:

with a vengeance: 猛烈地，极度地