‘You can’t look at me this way’: Chinese woman’s emotional reply to mother’s claim she looks like ‘prostitute’ with dyed purple hair attracts sympathy
- Woman says she always dyes hair ordinary colours but was shocked by mother’s reaction after it was accidentally dyed purple at a salon
- She asks in the video why men can go out bare to the waist but women are called ‘prostitutes’ for wearing camisoles
A filmed exchange between a young Chinese woman and her mother, who said she looked like a “prostitute” with dyed purple hair, has resonated with many online.
In the August 4 video posted on Douyin by a young woman, known as @woyaochifanlea, from southern China’s Guangdong province, she told her mother in tears: “I don’t care how other people look at me, but you can’t look at me this way.”
The unnamed university student said she had always chosen ordinary and inconspicuous colours when dyeing her hair, so she was shocked to see it after it was “accidentally” dyed light purple at a salon.
She said she feared her parents’ reaction to her hair as they believe such a colour is “weird”.
When she went home, her mother judged her hair as expected and claimed that other people would think she was a “prostitute”.
The woman said she was not upset by her mother’s small-minded criticism, but she was saddened that her thinking that was chained to outdated feudal social norms.
