Fanshan doesn't raise above society's sexism.

 In poem 173 of Red Pine's translation (2000), Fanshan doesn't raise above the sexism of China. He talks about women as though they are a burden, as though they are to be belittled and tolerated. They are compared to donkeys.

 

I'm not canceling Hanshan because I haven't met someone deeply who I didn't find some things I didn't like. If I'm canceling anything it's the NRA and Abbott. The republican congress that allowed the assault rifle ban to lapse. People who accept the sacrifice of children on the altar of false freedoms. My position on gun control.

The prevalence of people who think uttering gender conformity or ranking on the other gender is high. Honestly I took a break with this book after reading that. I got back to the book eventually. I really like Thomas Pynchon's novel Inherent Vice, but there are not any strong or virtuous women in the movie. I think in a way the book calls for superficial sexpots, but that doesn't mean you can't have one women character who has some depth or something interesting besides their body's ability to excite a man. 

I know it's a modern sensibility that honestly not a lot of men seem to have, but Franzen talks about it some. "Read a book from 50 years ago by John Updike, Norman Mailer, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut and, even though I love him, Joseph Heller, and you see they weren’t thinking about women in the right way. Those are pretty sexist books… I wish people would be spontaneously sensitive, but if they can’t, then a little bit of enforcement doesn’t seem to me a bad thing.”