Every year on International Women's Day, March 8th, Google changes its logo to include a symbol of femininity. This could be taken as a symbol of Women Power, or equality, or maybe just a funny once-a-year merger of two of our time's strongest logos.

Walking the streets of Shanghai, one is constantly confronted by the obvious coolness of the local youth, which especially holds for the young women.

Therefore it is not difficult to imagine that this generation of youngsters truly have been brought up according to Mao's saying: "Women hold half of the sky."

But tough attitudes and loads of self-confidence do not cut it in a country where statistics show a suspicious surplus of boys in certain regions. So we should not lose sight of the fact that we who live in today's modern society still need an annual reminder of the state of the unfortunately termed weaker sex.

It is not so much a matter of the right to work or other equal opportunities, as it is the fact that boys still are preferred over girls.

Historically, International Women's Day is linked to the birth of the socialist movement. In 1910, at an International Socialist meeting in Copenhagen, the participants decided to hold an annual International Women's Day.

Much has changed since then, yet in many countries, women are still not equally represented in politics or business, and in some countries women are the victims of constant violence.

Fortunately, for most women in modern China, the challenges are not that serious. Often they have to struggle with everyday obstacles like the expectations of holding both that part of the sky that is the workplace and the one that has to do with the household.

The question is whether the smaller struggles that many modern women must overcome deserve worldwide attention.

Ask any woman who multitasks in order to handle both work and a family, and I bet you her answer will be "yes".

(China Daily 03/08/2007 page7)