Sheng nü

Common card · No. 316659

Sheng nü (Chinese: 剩女; pinyin: shèngnǚ), common translation: leftover women or "leftover ladies") is a derogatory term popularized by the All-China Women's Federation that classifies women who remain unmarried in their late twenties and beyond. Most prominently used in China, the term has also been used colloquially to refer to women in India, North America, Europe, and other parts of Asia. The term compares unmarried women to leftover food and has gone on to become widely used in the mainstream media and has been the subject of several television series, magazine and newspaper articles, and book publications, focusing on the negative connotations and positive reclamation of the term. While initially backed and disseminated by pro-government media in 2007, the term eventually came under criticism from government-published newspapers two years later. Xu Xiaomin of The China Daily described the sheng nus as "a social force to be reckoned with" and others have argued the term should be taken...

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