Sheng nü
Term in China for unmarried women in their late twenties / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Sheng nü (Chinese: 剩女; pinyin: shèngnǚ), translated as 'leftover women' or 'leftover ladies', are women who remain unmarried in their late twenties and beyond in China. The term was popularized by the All-China Women's Federation.[1][2][3] 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.[4][5] 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.[6][7] While initially backed and disseminated by pro-government media in 2007, the term eventually came under criticism from government-published newspapers two years later.[8][9] 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 as a positive to mean "successful women".[10][11] The slang term, 3S or 3S Women, meaning "single, seventies (1970s), and stuck" has also been used in place of sheng nu.[11][12]
The equivalent term for men, guang gun 'bare branches' is used to refer to men who do not marry and thus do not add 'branches' to the family tree.[13] Similarly, shengnan (剩男) 'leftover men' has also been used.[11][14][15][16] Scholars have noted that this term is not as commonly used as "leftover women" in Chinese society and that single males reaching a certain age will often be labeled as either 'golden bachelors' (黄金单身汉) or 'diamond single men' (钻石王老五).[17]