主动求爱 Initiative in Courtship

people regard it as a matter of normality if a man takes the initiative in courtship, but if a woman does that, she is asking for trouble.

如果一个男人主动求爱，人们会把它当成一种常态，但如果是一个女人主动求爱，那她就是自找麻烦。

Traditionally, Chinese women should be stereotypically quiet, patient, and reserved, and to a large extent they were accessories to men. They didn’t have the right to pursue their own true love and were always waiting for men’s actions. With the improvement of women’s status and their newly?--gained independence, it seems that this attitude should have disappeared nowadays, however, it still exists today.

传统上,中国女性应该安静、耐心和有所保留的并在很大程度上他们是男性附属品。他们没有权利去追求自己的真爱，总是在等待男人的行为。随着妇女地位的提高和他们的新获得的独立，这种态度似乎应该要消失了，但是，今天仍然存在。

There are evidences that amorous initiative is firmly reserved to men, and modern women, although not so subordinate as traditional women, are still in a passive position. It is because that the ambience of societydoesn'tencourage women to take actions, that men still to some extent hold traditional attitude towards women, and that women themselves also accept the unwritten roles.

有证据显示恋爱中的主动权都是为男性保留的，现代女性，虽然不像传统女性那样，但是仍然处于被动地位。这是因为社会环境并不鼓励妇女采取行动，而男性在某种程度上对于女性还是保持传统观念，女性自己也接受了这个不成文的角色。

When referring to the issue of courtship, most of my male friends, though being college students, insist that initiative should be reserved to boys and girls should never be too positive, otherwise, it will scare away boys, that is, it is not suitable or reasonable for a girl to chase her affectionate boy. They even assume that even if a girl is cute enough to achieve her goal, she will not be really happy later on, because the boy will not cherish the love thatisn'tpursued by himself. So this initiative is boys’ privilege while girls even don’t have the freedom of pursuing.

在恋爱中谈及到这个问题时，虽然我大部分的男性朋友都是大学生，却坚持认为应该是男孩主动，因为女孩永远都不会太积极的，否则，她会把男孩吓跑的，也就是说，让一个女孩追球她钟情的男孩是不合适的或着说是不合理的。他们甚至认为即使一个女孩足够可爱来实现她的目标，到后面她也不会真的快乐。因为那个男孩不会珍惜不是自己追求来的爱。所以主动是男孩的特权，而女孩子甚至没有追求的自由。

It is said that women hold up half the sky. However, this half sky is shaded with some black clouds, not really cleared up. Hopefully, we can see some light going through the black clouds, shining out over the world.

都说女人能撑起半边天。然而，这半边天空是黑色的云的阴影，不是真的消失了。希望，我们可以通过黑色的云看到一些光，照耀了世界。

One of my friends ever told me a story, which overturns this stereotype, about a brave young lady who had fallen in love with a boy, decided that she would take actions to show her attractions to him, not just waiting for nothing. With her love and perseverance, though there being so much external and internal pressure, she eventually succeeded in attracting the boy and became a heroine and a good example of the other girls who also saw the promising land from her.

我一个朋友曾经告诉过我一个故事。它颠覆了这一观念。故事是关于一个勇敢的年轻女孩爱上一个男孩，并决定向男孩示爱，而不是干等。因为她的爱和坚持，尽管有很多的内部和外部压力，她最终还是成功的追到了那个男孩，成为一个英雄，一个很好的例子，让别的女孩从她身上看到了希望。

Hopefully, there will be many courageous women who try to break up the roles and the stereotypes to pursue their own happiness, making themselves the heroines.

希望将会有许多勇敢的妇女试图打破那种一成不变的角色去追求自己的幸福，让自己成为女英雄。